


pick it up if were moving too slow

by orphan_account



Series: Tax Evasion [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:37:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 139,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19773151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “…I want a dude who’s going to take me out on dates. And I want him to meet my dad in, like, a sweater vest and khakis and shake his hand and talk about sports with the guy. And I want him to have a car and an apartment – not like, nice ones? But ones, you know? He’s got a dog, too. He drives me around and buys me stuff and is nice to my dad and my friends but then, like,” he squeezes the basketball extra hard and is sure he feels some air being let out of it, “…he ties me up sometimes, too. Is that too much to ask for? Am I reaching for the stars?”Scott shakes his head, shuffling the cards and making piles out of them, likely by category. “There are no kinksters in Beacon Hills. We’ve been over this.”





	1. FindYourKink.com

Stiles tosses a toy basketball up into the air, and then catches it, over and over again, leaning back in his desk chair and huffing. Scott is across from him, sitting on the bed shuffling through a deck of Magic cards, muttering things to himself about which ones he needs to find and which are a complete and utter waste of his time. They’ve been in here for two hours, doing absolutely fucking nothing – because guess what? They’re pathetic.

Neither of them have been in a relationship in, swear to god, a year and a half. The sheer number of Friday nights they spend trolling bars with one another, getting piss drunk and staggering down the street at three am trying to find their condo…it’s just too many to count. It’s too humiliating.

Even now, it’s Saturday fucking night, and here they are. In Scott’s bedroom, playing with toys, just the two of them. It’s miserably depressing. Scott, for one, seems perfectly content to harbor his crush on a girl who doesn’t know he exists for years to come – and honestly, Stiles is even jealous of that. At least he has a fantasy. Stiles has fantasies, to be sure, but it’d be nice if he had a face to stick to it instead of just the amorphous blob of a large man he always thinks of in his head.

Stiles catches the basketball one last time, curling his fingers around it nice and tight like he’s thinking of popping it. “Here’s what I want,” he starts, and Scott is already nodding along even as he doesn’t look up from his cards. “…I want a dude who’s going to take me out on dates. I like dinner and ice cream and all that. And I want him to meet my dad in, like, a sweater vest and khakis and shake his hand and talk about sports with the guy. And I want him to have a car and an apartment – not like, nice ones? But ones, you know? He’s got a dog, too. He drives me around and buys me stuff and is nice to my dad and my friends but then, like,” he squeezes the basketball extra hard and is sure he feels some air being let out of it, “…he ties me up sometimes, too. Is that too much to ask for? Am I reaching for the stars?”

Scott shakes his head, shuffling the cards and making piles out of them, likely by category. “There are no kinksters in Beacon Hills. We’ve been over this.”

“You’ve got kinks,” Stiles accuses, and Scott finally looks up directly at him. He narrows his eyes.

“Name a kink of mine that’s off the beaten path.”

Stiles snaps his fingers. “Stalking, for one.”

In a flurry of motion, Scott lobs an entire stack of his cards in Stiles’ general direction. Stiles doesn’t do well dodging them at all, so a bunch of them flutter around and get lodged in his hair or go down his shirt, while Stiles sputters in indignation. “I don’t stalk, come on, man!”

“When you stare at a girl for forty five straight minutes in the mall food court while slowly drinking a milkshake –“

“Shut the fuck up –“ he’s up, coming across the room and running straight towards Stiles who’s already got his hands up in surrender with a startled laugh, “she didn’t notice!” He wraps his arms around Stiles’ body and hefts him up from the chair, tossing him bodily onto the bed with a loud plop, so Stiles’ entire body jerks and he has no choice but to shut his mouth.

Stiles is in a huge sea of Magic cards, more proof of their utter nerdiness, and he huffs up at the ceiling. “I’m not that kinky,” he says, and Scott breathes out a sigh and rubs his forehead.

“You’re not,” Scott agrees, because Stiles isn’t. That’s the entire fucking issue.

When a person says they’re kinky, they mean either one of two things, in Stiles’ experience. Number one, they mean that they like it when someone pats them on the ass a couple of times while having sex, or they like fuzzy handcuffs and flavored lube and talking dirty in a really vanilla way – like, oh, you’re such a dirty girl. Those are kink types one, in Stiles’ mind; the people you see and talk to every day who, like every other person on earth, like to get a little weird with sex.

Number two, they mean that they want to take an actual knife and slice Stiles’ arm open while he’s chained to a board in their basement after they just took a piss on him. It’s like there’s no in between.

Except for Stiles. Stiles is the in-between. Stiles doesn’t think what he wants is really that strange, but he’s been to the BDSM clubs and he’s had absolutely zero percent on the luck scale of finding anyone who was willing to do to him what he wants them to. God, the people he’s met there. He’s met people who want him to be a dog, and people who want to hurt him really really badly, and people who want him to be some subservient little slave who literally never leaves the house and does everything they ask him to.

But where’s the guy who just wants to have fun? Where’s the kinky guy who’s fun and not a total fucking creeper? Stiles is fun. Stiles is so much fun. None of these people apparently have an appreciation for that anymore.

“I’m never going to meet anybody,” he shrugs, running his hands along the Magic cards. “I’m going to be alone forever. Or, worse,” he sits up, palming his forehead in dismay, “…I’ll wind up with a vanilla.”

“The horror!”

“It’s my nightmare. Dude…” he squeezes the bridge of his nose and honestly thinks he gets an aneurism just thinking about it. “Imagine. Missionary. For the rest of your life. A bed, with white sheets, and a dude over you grunting and barely getting you off every night. This is what I’m talking about.”

Scott frowns. “I guess I see your point. The issue is, you’re not looking in the right places.”

“The right places,” Stiles snorts, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “I’ve looked everywhere, dude. I’ve tried everything. I’ve been to the clubs, and I’ve done the speed dating, and the this and the that –“

“The right places.” Scott repeats this, and then, with all the severity in the world, picks up his laptop and waves it around in the air a bit, so Stiles’ eyes track it. He stares, and Scott raises his eyebrows, and Stiles purses his lips.

“You want me to go on Match dot com.”

“Dude,” Scott flips it open and poises his fingers over the keyboard, giving Stiles a bit of a look. “You might as well go on Christian Mingle.”

“I bet there are kinkys on Christian Mingle,” Stiles says with a thoughtful expression on his face, tapping his chin. “Like, dress up as a nun and spank me with a ruler types.”

“Here’s what we do,” Scott makes a big show out of stretching his fingers in the air, smirking and cracking his knuckles. Then, he drops them down to the keys and sticks his tongue out of his mouth as he types. “Kinky…dating….sites…” and then he slaps his finger down on what has to be the enter button.

Stiles is up off the bed in seconds, scrambling over to where Scott is sitting so he can look over his shoulder. “You’re not really searching that,” he accuses, even as he comes around Scott’s shoulder to get a look at the results himself – and yup. Yup, Scott is really searching that.

“Here we go – DungeonDaddy dot com.”

“Scott,” Stiles half screams this, bursting into a fit of hysterical laughter.

“KinkyHunt dot com…”

Stiles slaps his hand over his mouth to keep the hysterics at bay, while Scott just keeps scrolling with an incredulous smile on his face. “Oh, here we go. SpankMeTeaseMe dot com.”

“No, no, no,” Stiles is wiping tears out of his eyes, shaking his head and calming down only just slightly. “Holy shit. The internet is the worst place to look for stuff like this, dude. It’s full of weirdos.” It’s true. Stiles has done his research. Every single time he’s even come across a tumblr blog he thinks is full of only stuff he likes, it’s not five posts later and three dick strokes in that his boner is being sucked back into his body at the sight of weird bestiality shit.

“It’s the only place,” Scott counters – and hell. It’s the only place left after everything Stiles has been through, he has to concede to that point. “And you might have to sift through the creeps, but, it’s worth a shot. Oh, look at this one –“ he clicks and goes to a site that at least isn’t decorated with spooky gargoyles or images of dungeons. “This one looks promising.”

It’s got a black background, because all things related to BDSM no matter how hardcore or not it is have to be black, or at the very least a dark red, but it’s…tasteful. The header reads FindYourKink.com, which makes Stiles snort and roll his eyes, but honestly, it’s better than ninety percent of what these other weirdos can come up with.

Stiles reminds himself that he technically is one of the weirdos, but he digresses.

“See this,” Scott clicks around and winds up on the first page of profile creation, pointing with his index finger enthusiastically. “It’s got, like, a questionnaire. You put in the stuff you’re into and it matches you with similar people. Like Match.”

“Like a better Match,” he corrects, grabbing the edge of the laptop so he can better see the words on the screen. The first question it asks is his alignment, which makes him blush and laugh at the same time.

“Come on,” Scott presses, nudging Stiles in the arm a bit. “Let’s do it. It can’t hurt. And it’ll be funny, come on.”

Stiles presses his lips down into a firm line to keep the laughter at bay, and then he sighs through his nose. It really can’t hurt. The worst that could happen is he downloads the app and gets creeps texting him pictures of their dicks all wrapped in ropes or something; and honestly, Stiles has already seen it all thanks to his lurking, so he doubts anything will really scar him for life.

Without another word, he points a finger at the checkbox marked underneath general submissive, and Scott grins a bit. “Feel like I’m about to know more about this side of you than I ever cared to, but,” he clicks on the box, “here we go.”

As soon as he does, a second list appears right underneath it, much longer than the first, and Stiles leans in closer. It’s a list of specific types of sub you could possibly be; and holy hell, Stiles never really took the time to realize that there are a lot of different kinds of people. The umbrella of kink is huuugggeee, and narrowing it down must be pretty fucking hard.

Stiles combs through the list, scrolling his finger down alongside the choices while Scott reads a couple he finds particularly shocking out loud. “Oh my God. Slave? Dude. What the fuck –“

“Let the weirdness sink over you,” Stiles says to him, and Scott huffs a laugh. “Half of doing shit like this is actively ignoring the stuff that turns you off. People are crazy.”

Scott sits there, probably with baited breath, while Stiles drags his finger along words like little (child), infantalist, puppy, and on and on and on. He’s probably half terrified to see which of these hell-words Stiles is going to land on.

Stiles points his finger with finality at sugar baby and says, “this is closest.”

Like he just can’t help himself, Scott laughs through his nose and nearly loses his mind as he drags the mouse over and clicks for Stiles, shaking his head. “Oh, man…”

“No judgment in the best friend zone,” Stiles reminds him with a hard shove, and Scott desperately tries to strangle his laughter down, nodding.

“Okay, okay, okay.” He clears his throat, shaking off the last of the jitters. “No judgment. Okay. Oh, man. So, uh – interested in…?” Scott slowly moves his mouse to hover it over the obvious and clear choice in comparison with what Stiles had called himself – sugar daddy. Stiles nods his head, and Scott clicks it, and then they go through the basic questions of his gender, sexual orientation, and body type.

On the next page, the real juice lies in wait for them. It’s the entire definitive kink list, not even personalized based on what Stiles had chosen before, and they have to go through the entire. Thing. It’s long. It’s almost insurmountable when Scott scrolls through it quickly with a whistle, shaking his head. “Okayyyy,” he draws it out nice and long, and then brings them back up to the top. “Uh. Oh, god.”

“No. Judgment,” Stiles repeats, leaning over to read the first question. Spanking, it says, and then alongside it several bubbles with the options not at all interested, somewhat interested, and very interested. “Um,” he starts, and then rubs his chin. “Put somewhat.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Scott does it all the same, clicking and shaking his head. “Rope bondage,” he says out loud, and then turns to Stiles to wait for his answer.

“Very,” Stiles says, and Scott shakes his head some more and selects the option.

“Dirty talk.”

“Very.”

“Humiliation?”

“Somewhat.”

“This is humiliating for me,” Scott mutters, scrolling down to the next section. “Okay. Role play using costumes.”

Stiles makes a face. “Depends what it is.”

“I’ll put somewhat,” Scott decides, and then goes on to the next one. “Oh, man. Feminization, i.e. wearing ladies’ lingerie, clothing, or makeup. Oh, man.”

Rubbing his chin some more, Stiles smirks. “Put somewhat.”

Scott’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he whips around to try and look Stiles right in the face, but Stiles keeps his eyes trained on the screen and the screen alone. “Is there a pair of lace panties in that dresser over there?” he demands, eyebrows half up in his hairline.

Slow as a glacier, Stiles shrugs his shoulders, smirking. “Could be.”

“Dear God,” Scott shakes his head, gives himself some time to process the information, and then goes on to the next question.

By the time they’re finished, it’s been forty-five minutes and Scott has become numb to the information. They came to questions about watersports and pain play and knife play, while Stiles answered entirely with the not at all option, and Scott’s eyes glazed over and he went half-mute. Stiles wasn’t sure if he was dissociating away from the trauma, or if he just blacked out for his own safety.

All the same, the questionnaire is done, and they’re onto the actual profile part of making the profile. This is an area that Scott seems more comfortable with, tapping his chin as the text cursor blinks and blinks. “What should we put as your username?”

“I’ve been using stiles.stilinsk99 since I was in third grade. It’s a good standby,” he moves his fingers to push Scott’s away, but Scott retaliates, smacking at Stiles’ right back.

“No, what the fuck? It can’t be something that’s your real name first of all, not on the internet, dingbat,” he huffs, and Stiles concedes to that point. “Second of all, that’s boring. No one’s going to click on you with that shit. It has to be – you know. Sexy.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Scott looks thoughtful for a second. “Since you’re into the whole daddy thing, how about…” he poises his fingers and then types out looking4daddy69, and Stiles about has a seizure.

“Scott,” he yells, frantically backspacing the letters away before they accidentally get sent out into cyberspace. “Oh, my God!”

“What?” He demands, a smile curling up the sides of his lips. “It would work!”

“No,” Stiles puts his foot down. “No way. Come on. It can’t be that in your face. It should be, you know,” he gestures a bit, “subtle.”

“Subtle,” Scott repeats, rolling the word around on his tongue as he thinks about it for a moment. “Subtle…” They sit there in silence for a few seconds, both of them deep in thought while the screen blinks and waits for them to decide on something. Then, Scott’s finger goes into the air, and he types out, lacythoughts, finishing it off with a flourish. He looks at Stiles with his eyebrows raised, like what do you think?

Stiles stares at it for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “It’s not…awful,” he decides on. “It’s suggestive without being too forward.”

“It is,” Scott agrees, and he clicks next before Stiles can have anything else to say about it. The username hasn’t been taken, and now that’s Stiles’ online persona. He doesn’t know whether or not he hates it yet, and it’s too late either way. “Now…we need a picture.”

Scott pulls up Stiles’ facebook and begins clicking through his profile pictures. The first one is an obvious and clear no – it’s of he and his dad at the last company barbeque for the station. The second one is another obvious no, featuring he and Scott at graduation, holding bottles of champagne in both hands. The third, he and a puppy at the pet store, the fourth, he and Scott at the carnival, and on and on and on, going all the way back to freshman year of college. Not a single one of them is usable, and Scott and Stiles don’t have to vocalize this out loud to one another for them to both just know that.

“All right,” Scott says, tapping his chin. For whatever reason, he seems to be taking this about ten times more seriously than Stiles ever could. “That means we need to take one right now.”

“Scott, no.”

“Scott, yes,” he counters while standing up and setting his laptop aside.

“Come on. Let’s just use the one of me in front of the mural. I like that one.”

“It’s two years old and it’s not alluring at all.” Scott begins walking towards his door, and Stiles knows it’s the point of no return. When Scott actually manages to set his mind to something, that’s that, and there’s no use in Stiles arguing about it. Stubborn as Stiles can be, Scott is a whole ‘nother level, when he wants to be.

Scott returns with his phone and begins rifling through Stiles’ clothes until coming up with an honest to god outfit. He puts Stiles in it by force, and the next thing Stiles knows, Scott is pageant mom’ing him. As in, he’s directing Stiles on how to sit and how to put his hands and how to arrange his face, all while aiming his phone camera at him and changing the angle every ten snaps. It takes an outrageously long amount of time for two dudes to take a single fucking picture, but when all is said and done, Scott is holding his phone out proudly and smirking, raising his eyebrows.

“This,” he starts, nodding his head, “is a very good picture.”

Stiles makes grabby hands. “Let me see it.”

Once the phone is in Stiles’ hand, he turns it to look at it more critically, and he can’t help but shoot his eyebrows up into his hairline at the sight of it. It is, bizarrely, a really good picture. The rules of the website dictate that profile pictures are to be from the nose down, cutting off everyone’s eyes so no one can truly and unequivocally be identified; so the picture cuts Stiles off in just the right place, and for whatever reason, it immediately draws the eyes to his lips. His collarbones are slightly exposed by the black v-neck Scott had forced him into, his lips are parted just enough to be enticing, and the background at least doesn’t capture his dirty bedroom.

“Let’s upload it,” Scott takes the phone away and smirks, waving it around in the air like he’s proud of it. “You look like someone’s fucking twink.”

“I know,” Stiles agrees. “That’s exactly what I was going for.”

Around the laptop again, they sit shoulder to shoulder on Scott’s bed, while Stiles chews his thumb watching the picture upload. It looks bigger on browser, more high definition, and it makes him somewhat nervous. People are going to see this, and while no one can really be sure that it’s him…he does have really definitive characteristics. His moles, to start with.

But then, it’s not like his father lurks FindYourKink.com. One could only hope.

“All right. We’ve got your age, your general location, and your picture,” he smiles, turning to Stiles with an expectant look on his face, “you wanna post?”

Stiles chews on his thumb a bit harder, and for a second he thinks about saying no. He thinks about letting the whole thing go and just going back to his life, the safe and easy way out. He considers just settling for someone who’ll never really get him, some boring guy who touches him the wrong way and buys him flowers sometimes. He’s been doing it for years upon years, now, and really, what’s a little bit longer? And then, what’s the rest of his life?

What’s the worst that could happen, he wonders. Trying something is better than not trying at all.

“Post,” he says, and Scott hits enter, and then there it is. The entire profile comes up, finished and ready for anyone to see. His picture, with his username and his age right next to it, and then a link to click with his “kink profile.” There’s something vaguely embarrassing about it, but then, Stiles lost all his shame somewhere around the time his dad walked in on him jerking off to bondage fetish shit.

There’s a peppy pop up that reminds him to download the app for the full experience!!, and Stiles bites on his thumb some more and wonders.

***

He does download the app. That same exact night, lying awake in his bed long after Scott has likely completely zonked out in his own room down the hall, Stiles downloads the app and spends some time getting acquainted with it. It’s a lot like any other social media app, where you can be matched up with people or just zoom through other local people’s profiles.  
And Stiles gets weirded out when he sees just how many kinkster weirdos live within a ten mile radius of him. Like, really weirded out. Not everybody’s has a tasteful but sexy picture of themselves fully clothed.

Oh, no. Not by a long shot. The things he sees in the first ten minutes of scrolling around has him shouting laughter into his pillow, shaking his head at the shamelessness some people have.

It’s not until noon the next day that someone actually dares to message him. He’s had a few people match up with him, and he’s cruised along their profiles and been entirely uninterested and he guesses they all were as well, because it’s been radio silence for over twelve hours. But his phone pings with an unfamiliar sound while Scott and Stiles are sitting on the couch watching Netflix.

He sees the notification and nearly falls off the couch. Immediately, he fumbles his phone in his hand to get the app open, shouting at Scott that it’s happening here we go get ready, and Scott, alarmed, pauses the show.

“Oh, my God,” Stiles says, slapping his hand over his mouth as he reads the message to himself in his head. “Oh, my god…”

“What?” Scott demands, reaching out to grab at Stiles’ phone. “Dude, what is it?”

“It’s…” Stiles presses his fist to his mouth, still shocked out of his mind, and then holds the phone out for Scott to look at. Scott does, leaning in with a wide and incredulous smile on his face, squinting as his eyes scan across the message.

Longdickjohn32 : how much to sit on your pretty face?

“Oh. My. Fuck. Ing. God.” Scott claps along with every syllable, pulling away from the phone for a brief moment. Then, as if to confirm that he seriously just read that, he leans back and reads it again, shaking his head in disbelief. “Longdickjohn. Oh my fucking –“

Stiles cries. He laughs so hard he gets tears in his eyes, but he still clicks on longdickjohn32’s profile. He sees the picture, and falls off the couch, kicking his feet in the air and sobbing. “He’s, like, fifty-six dude!”

“Dude,” Scott repeats back to him, in a similar state of hysterics as he talks around guffaws, “you put that you were interested in sugar daddies. What’d you think was gonna happen?”

“I mean, like, a thirty at oldest dude who happens to be a really successful business guy.” He sits up from the ground, breathing in deep as he wipes the tears from his eyes. “Oh, man.”

“Right. Because that’s really gonna happen.”

And, you know, Stiles doesn’t genuinely think so. There’s honestly nothing in him that believes he’ll find exactly what he’s looking for on this website, or anywhere else, because he isn’t sure his fantasies can ever be a reality. Jesus, can anyone’s? Never down to the details. Nothing is ever how we picture it in our heads, and Stiles has spent a lot of time imagining some perfect guy who gives him everything he wants and needs, so he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt the reality will never quite hit the mark.

That’s fine. Just…the dude has to be younger than forty. Bare minimum. He at least draws the line somewhere.

Some two hours later, he gets another message, and is disturbed when he sees that the location is literally three miles away from where he is at the coffee shop with Scott. He sips his frappe, hears his phone give off that now-familiar ping, and leans back in his chair as he opens up the app.

Bigdaddyboylover : sooo cute baby I wanna play with you

“Oh, my God,” he covers his eyes with his hand, and shakes his head. “This one just creeps me out.”

Scott reads it and gives Stiles a look. “That’s what I expected. We have to sift through the freaks to get to someone worth your time.”

“Boy lover,” he repeats, clicking on the thumb nail of the guy and frowning when he sees another fifty something, at least. “This dude’s a pedo.”

“Which is why he’s trolling for 23 year old man dick.”

“You know I can pass for seventeen.”

Scott doesn’t dignify that with an answer, sipping on his frappe and shrugging his shoulders.

***

Stiles spends the next week of his life balancing work and social life, with the occasional interruption from the ping on his phone. He’ll be sitting at weekly dinner with his father, taking a bite of lasagna and nearly choking when he sees some shit on his notifications screen about tearing his clothes off and spanking him till he bleeds. Or he’ll be doing laundry at the local place down the street while sipping on a soda, an elderly woman next to him, reading some dissertation from a guy about all the things he’d do to him, given half the chance.  
Stiles doesn’t dignify a single one with an answer. A couple of guys get really angry about that, calling him names and degrading him until he has no choice but to block and report them – but he doesn’t mind that much. It all goes over his head like the wind and he mostly just rolls his eyes about it. After all, he’s spoken to dudes before. He knows how some of them get. All the same, his week goes by and nothing comes out of his big brave thing, to the point where it becomes commonplace.

Deadass, he sits in his car outside his dad’s house before walking in, reads a message about deep throating him until he cries and chokes to death, barely reacts, and greets his dad like nothing happened. He’s becoming numb to the fuckoff messages. Which is disconcerting enough that he starts to consider deleting the app and his profile altogether, because no one should become used to being called a dirty disgusting cockslut fifteen times a day. It just ain’t his cup of tea, if he’s being honest.

The same day he decides he’ll delete it all in a week if he still gets nothing, he’s out to a late lunch by himself after getting off work unbelievably early. He’s got a cheeseburger in front of him and a cherry coke in his hand, sitting next to the window of one of his favorite diners in town, and then it happens.

No one could have ever prepared him for what would follow. Sometimes, the universe aligns, and we don’t even know it’s happening.

Lykosblack : Is it safe to assume you’re wearing something lacy underneath the stereotypical twenty-year old boy outfit?

Stiles blinks in surprise after he reads it, and then reads it again, and again. He spends about thirty seconds just staring at the messaging screen, waiting for a second, much more lascivious message to come through. It never does. The message sits there, and whoever this guy is can see that Stiles has read it, and Stiles sits up a bit in his seat.

He clicks on the profile picture, and nearly chokes on a bite of his burger. Of course, it cuts off at the eyes, but Stiles…gets the idea. Holy hell, does he ever get the idea. If this is this guy’s real picture, he’s that under thirty guy Stiles has been thinking about since he was six-fucking-teen. He’s got an even, clean and chiseled jawline, and in his picture it’s evident he’s sitting on some fucking resort island in a fucking polo shirt, the sun setting behind him.

Stiles does not believe that someone who looks like this and has money to be in the Bahamas or wherever the hell would need to be on FindYourKinks.com. This is a catfish. He’s not that fucking naïve.

Which doesn’t explain why Stiles actually takes the next step and reads the guy’s kink profile. He does it with some other dudes, mostly just for the shit of it. But he’s always been entirely shocked out of his socks and disgusted and completely turned off by what he’s found in the other dudes’ profiles. Hey, to each their own, but the thought of some dude pissing on him makes Stiles want to projectile vomit all over the nearest possible surface.

Stiles scrolls through lykosblack’s kink profile and isn’t all that disgusted. There are a couple of his hard limits, like chains and dressing up like a school girl, but for the most part, they’re pretty well matched. When Stiles goes deeper into his profile, he sees that this guy claims he’s 27, is less than ten miles away from where Stiles is right now, and that they’re a 75% match. Which isn’t, like, soulmate level or anything, but it’s more than he can say for anybody else he’s encountered thus far.

He bites on his straw and goes back to the messaging box, considering for a moment. He’s never spoken to a single guy on the app or the website before, and he doesn’t know why he’d start now, with a clear and evident fucking catfish. A waste of his time, really.

There’s something inside of him, though, that really, really wants to engage. And, so what if he’s a catfish? Can’t he just, like, sext with a dude who may or may not be who he says he is? It’s not like there are any actual…repercussions. It’s just fun.

And Stiles likes fun.

Lacythoughts : Uh, stereotypical twenty year old boy outfit? It’s a shirt and jeans, my dude.

The responding message pings him back in record time, and Stiles barely chews his food in his haste to read it.

Lykosblack : I just meant twenty year old boys don’t generally put on display being a fan of lacy things.  
Lacythoughts : I’m not a boy.  
Lacythoughts : I mean, I’ve got a dick. I mean, I’m a 23 year old man.  
Lykosblack : Yes. And you’re on this website saying you’re on the lookout for a sugar daddy. Don’t pretend you don’t want to be called a good boy.

Stiles’ heart literally stops when he reads that. It’s not the most sexual thing someone has said to him on this site, not by a longshot, but it is by and large the only one that’s ever given him…a reaction. At least, a reaction other than disgust.

He can’t help but wonder if lykosblack went through Stiles’ kink profile before messaging him and took note of the amount of times Stiles notched very interested on all things relating to praise kink.

Lacythoughts : to answer your earlier question…  
Lacythoughts : I do like to wear lace underwear.

Stiles puts his phone face down and covers his red face, abruptly remembering he’s in a public place. His waitress smiles at him as she walks past, and he returns the favor and gives her the thumbs up for whatever bizarre reason, and no one else seems to notice he’s even there. It’s four o’clock on a Wednesday, so he’s one of the few people even in here right now. Still, he feels like there’s a spotlight on him and everyone is staring, so he ducks his head and tries to focus on his food.

His phone pings, and he smiles into his plate. This is so – stupid.

Lykosblack : Do you like to dress like a girl in other ways, too?  
Lacythoughts : Not my thing. Just the underwear.  
Lykosblack : I like that. Boy clothes and pretty underwear underneath.

The word pretty has been sent to Stiles via this app more times than he could count, and all other times have made him cringe and shake his head and be completely turned off. This time, though, and maybe it’s just because of the face and body next to the words or just because of how he says it…Stiles doesn’t hate it. He doesn’t hate it at all.

Lacythoughts : I guess you’ve got on hot pink lacy boy shorts underneath those khakis, huh?  
Lykosblack : HA! Boxer briefs, actually.  
Lacythoughts : booorrrinnngggg.  
Lykosblack : Guys like me generally are.  
Lacythoughts : Is it boring to be on a website like this? You’ve got kinks. You can’t be THAT uninteresting.  
Lykosblack : Hm.  
Lacythoughts : Just reading through your profile, I can tell you’re more interesting than, like, ninety percent of the dudes I work with. The vanillas, I call them.  
Lykosblack : Oh, you read through that, did you?  
Lacythoughts : you read through mine.  
Lykosblack : Touche’.  
Lykosblack : Did you like it?  
Lykosblack : My profile.  
Lacythoughts : Uh…I think you’re a catfish.  
Lykosblack : Ha. Oh, my God.  
Lykosblack : All right. Think that.  
Lykosblack : Can I ask why?  
Lacythoughts : Oho, okay. Number one, now envision me rolling up my sleeves, you’re way too good looking to need to be on a site like this.  
Lacythoughts : number two, you’re twenty-seven and hot as hell and haven’t found some twink to settle down with? Uh, yeah, right.  
Lacythoughts : number three, I say again, you’re too hot. Next.

Stiles puts his phone down again and refocuses in on his burger, shaking his head. The guy is just flat out way too good to be true, point blank, that’s it. People like this do not just appear on of all places, the internet. They just don’t. He makes it through three big chews before his phone pings, and he gets actually…a bit nervous to look at what it says. Maybe this is another one of those crazy guys who’s going to go batshit and call him a stupid ugly bitch, who the fuck knows?

All the same, he braves the storm and flips his phone over, leaning over to read his notifications.

Lykosblack : I’m too “good looking” to be on a site like this?  
Lykosblack : I could say the exact same thing about you, baby.

Baby has Stiles stopping in his tracks, blinking. He bites his lip and shakes it off, picking up his phone with both hands to text.

Lacythoughts : Be that as it may, how come you haven’t found someone to settle with?  
Lykosblack : Jesus, twenty-seven is not that old. You’re acting like I’m a forty year old virgin.  
Lykosblack : And, just to remind you, we’re on a kink site.  
Lykosblack : You’re on here for the same reason I am : no luck finding someone with our specific interests. I may be good looking and you as well, but here we both are.  
Lykosblack : I bet you could write a really interesting paragraph on all the things you wish your ex-boyfriends would have done to you but never had the balls to.  
Lykosblack : Think I’m a catfish all you want, but I bet I can give you what you want.

Stiles taps his fingers on top of the table, biting his lip so hard he’s sure he tastes blood. He was just starting to give up on this whole thing, and now here this person is, and Stiles isn’t so sure he knows what to think about them. It is, of course, really tempting to believe him, because Stiles really wants someone hot and cool to talk to, and he really wants a type like him to talk to, and he wants someone to call him baby.

But he’s just gotta be too good to be true. He just has to be.

Lacythoughts : Okay.  
Lacythoughts : why’d you message me?  
Lykosblack : You’re adorable, you have the same interests as me. A better question is why you messaged me back if you think I’m pretending to be someone I’m not.  
Lacythoughts : You think I’m adorable?

No one has ever really attributed that specific word to Stiles before. He’s been called some pretty complimentary things, like hot and cute and sexy and all that – but adorable? Not so much.

Lykosblack : Insecure? I can fix that.  
Lacythoughts : Lmao..how?  
Lykosblack : That’s half the point of having someone like me in your life, baby. I’d make you feel special and pretty, right?

Stiles blushes again, his burger long forgotten, and this time when the waitress comes around, he ducks his face underneath his hand and breathes through his nose.

Lacythoughts : Ideally.  
Lykosblack : Let’s just boil it down, now.  
Lykosblack : I genuinely do think you and I would get along, and I want to talk to you more. I get that you think I might not be who you want me to, and I understand.  
Lykosblack : I want you to feel safe. We can just keep messaging on here. No harm, no foul. Until you’re comfortable.

No harm, no foul. What’s the worst that could happen?

***

Lacythoughts : are you up?  
Lykosblack : I typically am this time of night. Insomnia, etc.  
Lykosblack : It gets worse when I’m sleeping alone.  
Lacythoughts : Wanna know what kind of underwear I’m wearing??  
Lykosblack : Fuck. Okay. Jump right into it.  
Lacythoughts : if I’m going to be messaging a fucking catfish I’m going to make the most of it. They’re a really light lavender purple. Lace, of course. Little bow on the front.  
Lykosblack : You wear stuff like that even when you’re single?  
Lacythoughts : I half just wear it for myself. I like how it feels.  
Lykosblack : That’s unbelievably sexy. Would you let me touch?  
Lacythoughts : hmmmm…nah.  
Lykosblack : Oh, a tease, huh? I’ll have to work that out of you.  
Lacythoughts : Lmao, by doing what?  
Lykosblack : I can tease you right back.  
Lykosblack : And believe me, you won’t like it so much.  
Lacythoughts : You like edging?  
Lykosblack : Love it.  
Lacythoughts : I’ve tried edging myself, but honestly, it really doesn’t work. Pretty depressing stuff.  
Lykosblack : Aww. You really need someone to take care of you, don’t you?  
Lacythoughts : All right, I’ll bite. Suppose I asked you to edge me, all that. How’d you do it?  
Lykosblack : Since you asked.  
Lykosblack : I’d tie you up, hands to the headboard, legs spread. I’d have you so covered in lube you’d shine, and I’d stroke you and deny you so many times, rubbing your back and squeezing your balls to keep you on the edge, that you’d cry and beg me again to again to either let you come or let you go.  
Lykosblack : And that’d be your lesson on what happens when you tease daddy.  
Lacythoughts ; Holy shit.  
Lykosblack : You like that?  
Lacythoughts : Yes.  
***

Lykosblack : Underwear?  
Lacythoughts : Hot pink.  
Lykosblack : Do you generally dress how you do in your profile picture?  
Lacythoughts : Okay, randomass – yeah, mostly? I mean, my friend helped me take it and, like, dressed me up to be more appealing, but…yeah. Jeans, shirts.  
Lykosblack : Okay. Hold on.  
Lykosblack : Your friend dressed you up for that picture.  
Lacythoughts : He posed me, too. It’s not funny.  
Lykosblack : I must be laughing about something else, then.  
Lacythoughts : Come on, he wanted people to find me sexy. It’s a shame that’s the only picture you’ve seen of me, my dude – you don’t know just how awkward the reality is!  
Lykosblack : Unless when you’re wearing different clothes, your adorable beauty marks and hot as hell bone structure vanish, I really doubt I’d think of you any differently.  
Lacythoughts : It’s such bullshit you think you can just saayyyy stuff like that.  
Lykosblack : Kinda like how it’s bullshit you can just tell me the color of your underwear and how it feels “so sexy” on your body and then heckle the fact that I’m not allowed to touch.  
Lacythoughts : You asked ME!!  
Lykosblack : Can’t you just pretend to be wearing ugly black boxers? For once? For ME?  
Lacythoughts : I don’t even own boxers. Sorry (:  
****

Lacythoughts : All right. Black lace. Satin ribbon around the top.  
Lykosblack : A+. You bought all these yourself?  
Lacythoughts : Ugh, yeah, depressingly enough. Why do you think I’m lurking the internet for a sugar daddy? Someone’s gotta pay for my lingerie.  
Lykosblack : I’d buy you as many as you wanted.  
Lacythoughts : I’m gonna suggest you put some on, man. You don’t know how nice the feel of smooth, soft lace is on your cheeks until you give it a shot.  
Lykosblack : Oh, man.  
Lykosblack : I think I’m more satisfied touching you in them.  
Lacythoughts : not that you’d ever know what it’s like. Your name is Gary, you’re fifty-two with a family of four, and you got that picture off Instagram.  
Lykosblack : You know, sweetheart, there’s a really easy way to find out whether or not I’m actually a catfish.  
Lykosblack : Have you ever actually, you know…SEEN Catfish?  
Stiles puts his phone down on his stomach and stares up at his ceiling. Because yes. Yes he has seen the show Catfish before, and he knows and remembers exactly how they go about digging up dirt on potential Catfish. The funniest part about that show is that these honkies really go searching for two squares to do what any normal fucking person could do on their own time, for free, without the annoyance of a camera crew.

Reverse. Image. Search.

Immediately, he grabs at his laptop from his bedside table and pries it open, sitting up and chewing on the string of his sweatshirt. It’s about two o’clock in the afternoon, he’s home alone, and this would make it the fourth day he’s spent texting with lykos as opposed to doing pretty much anything else, aside from work and eat.

He’s also spent a great deal of time jerking off. Which…isn’t unusual anyway.

He goes to his profile on FindYourKinks and pulls up his matches, digs up lykosblack’s profile, and sees the picture in all its glory. It’s even more ridiculous looking when he can zoom in on it and blow it up – right. There’s no fucking way this is guy he’s talking to. He’s tan, big, sexy, and evidently has some money to his name.

People like this don’t just spend hours out of their day sexting Stiles. They just fucking don’t.

All the same, there’s this part of him that’s hoping against hope. Because at the end of the day, no matter what else happens, this is the fucking guy who’s been filling Stiles’ head with all sorts of fantasies. And this is the dude who keeps making borderline promises to fulfill those exact fantasies.

So, Stiles really hopes he’s wrong.

He sticks the URL for lykos’ picture into the search address, and clicks enter. It searches, and the results pop up within seconds, because that’s how easy it is. Blessedly, the results don’t show sixteen different profiles with sixteen different names, all claiming to be different people underneath the same picture; the exact same picture only comes up one other time, and it leads to a facebook.

Stiles’ fingers hover above the keyboard as soon as he sees that it’s a Facebook link. That’s dangerous fucking territory. We’re talking, real name territory. They’d be leaving the realm and sanctity of the chat, where everything is just text and pictures without eyes and no names. The only thing that lykos ever calls Stiles is shit like baby and sweetheart, and Stiles just calls him – well – lykos.

Now, here’s this opportunity to either find out he’s a fake, or find out he’s real, and Stiles is really going to sit here and fucking hesitate. No sirree bob. He clicks the link so fast he practically hurts his finger, and then there it is.

With eyes, the picture is almost weird to see. It stares back at him, and Stiles can see now that while the facial expression looked more severe from the nose down, it looks a lot friendlier. This person communicates a lot with the eyes, so Stiles can see now that he’s not angry – he’s just sitting there. On a couch. On the terrace of what is clearly a really nice hotel. Right in front of the beach, and a sunset.

The name attached to the profile reads Derek Hale, and Stiles runs his fingers along his mouth. The profile is almost entirely private, but not completely. He can click through some of Derek’s profile pictures, so the next one shows him in a black button down and black tie, half-smiling in a picture with a pretty girl that has to be his sister. After that, he’s standing with his hands stuffed into his pockets in front of a mural he fucking recognizes.

That’s the mural in downtown Beacon Hills. The one by the pet store. All the picnic benches that Stiles has sat in dozens of times, all the trees that Stiles has tried to climb in the courtyard – all of it. Right there. And there’s just…so slim a possibility that that’s a coincidence.

Lacythoughts : What’s your name?  
Lykosblack : It’s Derek.  
Lacythoughts : djagoriagjrioajegreijgegoiaejgiaoeg  
Lacythoughts : You’re…NOT a catfish. Oh my god.  
Lacythoughts : …sorry?

Lykos, or Derek, which is just weird for right now to refer to him as, sends a laughing emoji, and Stiles looks up and stares at the picture again. His full face, a smile on, looking directly at the camera.

Lykosblack : I guess we can discuss your ‘sorry’ at a later date.  
Lacythoughts : How about…I send you a picture of my underwear and you decide all is forgiven?  
Lykosblack : Fuck.  
Lykosblack : Deal.

Stiles doesn’t have to take all the time in the world to set up the picture, take the picture, get the right lighting, none of it – he already has the picture. He’d taken it a couple of days ago, after lykos – Derek – had sent him something particularly enticing about, you know, holding him down and yadda yadda yadda. He just didn’t send it at the time because, again, he was still suspicious that he just wasn’t who he said he was, and he really, really didn’t want to send that kind of a picture to some creepy pervert with a wife and kids.

Now, he figures the tides have changed. And he’s really, really wanted to send this picture to someone. Him, specifically.

He pulls it up in his phone and observes it for a minute, making sure that he’s really proud of it – and boy he is.

His face isn’t in it, because it’s only from his belly button down. He’s got no pants on, just his underwear – a lacy light blue number with a bright pink satin bow. The head of his cock peeks out from the elastic band up top, hard and leaking just a bit, and his pale and slender hand is wrapped around the bulge the rest of his dick makes in the gentle and soft fabric. Man, this is a fucking image. He doesn’t think twice about sending it, smirking and barely bothering to cover the expression up with his hand. After all, he is alone in his bedroom.

The image sends with a swoosh, foreign because they’ve never sent images to each other in the messenger before. Stiles watches with baited breath as the little thumbnail of the image gets a little checkmark and a read underneath it. The seconds tick by, Stiles waiting for Derek to say something about it, and the entire time he just sits there, practically vibrating out of his bed in excitement.

Lykosblack : Holy. Shit.  
Lykosblack : You could crash my favorite car into a wall. If you sent me shit like this, I couldn’t be mad at you.

Stiles doesn’t have the time to ruminate on the term my favorite car – who has more than one? – before Derek is sending him another message.

Lykosblack : Not to be crass, but you have just given me spank bank material for a solid month.  
Lacythoughts : I can’t believe Mr. “I’m going to fuck you so raw you’ll feel it for a week” is really going to say the words “not to be crass.” Really.  
Lykosblack : Har har.  
Lykosblack : Honestly, though, this is one hell of a picture. I mean. It really showcases your photography skills.  
Lykosblack : I don’t suppose your friend had a hand in this one, as well?  
Lacythoughts : fuck off, holy shit.

***

Lykosblack : We’ve been talking for about two weeks now. You know I’m not a catfish, and I can pretty much sleep easy at night without any doubts whatsoever that you’re a 23 year old boy – it’s in how you talk. I think we have a lot in common, not just kink-wise, and I want to meet you in person. Publicly, just to make you feel safe. Think about it, get back to me with a time and a place, or don’t.  
***

Stiles clicks through Derek Hale’s profile pictures with Scott sitting next to him, and the entire time, Scott just sits there with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. “This is the dude?” Scott demands, pointing at his face again and again, looking between it and Stiles. “This is him?”  
“This is him,” Stiles says back with a dreamy sigh through his nose. The pictures are…well. They’re really nice. As it turns out, Stiles has spank bank material, too, and these aren’t even intentionally sexy.

“This guy looks like he models professionally,” Scott leans in, squinting as he examines the face more closely. It’s a picture of Derek in khakis and another polo shirt, the perfect picture of a rich douchebag. “…I’m pretty positive he’s modeled, dude.”

“He’s not a model,” Stiles scoffs.

“So, then, what does he do? He clearly has money.”

“That’s uh,” Stiles clicks to another picture, clearing his throat, “…actually never come up, now that I think about it. We don’t exactly spend a lot of time talking about…money.”

Scott looks at him, all disgusted and judgmental, but at the same time, vaguely amused. After all, while it was happening, Stiles showed him some of the correspondences they’d had together, just to have someone to squeal about it with. Scott knows god damn good and well exactly what kind of things the two of them talk about.

“Well, whatever. Guy is hot. And he’s obviously into you,” he side-eyes Stiles for a moment, giving him the patented best friend look. “Are you going to meet him?”

Stiles closes his laptop and then sighs again, playing with his phone in his hands. Derek had sent him that message two hours ago, and Stiles isn’t too messed up about leaving Derek hanging because Derek clearly could tell that Stile would have to think about it.

This just isn’t something that Stiles can do lightly. He just can’t jump into it, even in spite of everything that he and Derek have already talked about in their messages. The guy has essentially told Stiles he wants to tear him the fuck apart about sixteen times now – they’ve basically already fucked, in more ways than one.

Still. Stiles is…nervous. Really, really, nervous. After all, Scott did get a really nice picture of Stiles, and Stiles isn’t sure that that’s really what he looks like. If what Derek sees in that stupid little picture, with all the right angles and right lighting, is what he’s going to see if they met in person.

“I just…” he starts, and then covers his mouth with his hand. It’s so fucking stupid. “…I just think I kinda really like him. And I don’t want to. You know. Disappoint.”

“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” Scott snaps, almost looking angry about it. “Any guy who wouldn’t want to be with you is a complete waste of your time, a useless idiot, and a fuckoff. And if you really like Derek, then he can’t be any of those things, because you’re smarter than that. Come on,” he nudges Stiles in the shoulder, and Stiles sort of crinkles underneath it like a dying leaf. “You’ve gotta at least give it a chance. I won’t let you say no.”

***

Lacythoughts : I want to meet you for coffee. You know the place on Peach?  
Lykosblack : I do know the place on Peach.  
Lacythoughts : eleven o’clock on Sunday.  
Lacythoughts : And I’m bringing my best friend just so I don’t get murdered. Safety first.  
Lykosblack : HA! I get it.  
***

Stiles jiggles his leg and stares out the window, squinting at the sunlight. He’s thought about getting up and making a run for it about seven different times, on a very serious plane of thought, but he doesn’t know if even has the fucking balls for that at this point. It’s 10:55 AM, and he’s been here since 10:30, jiggling his leg, and freaking out. Scott is sitting at another table from him, mostly just there for silent moral support and to watch from a distance to make sure nobody tries to shove him in the back of a van, or anything like that.  
He got here early so he could pick his favorite table, and now here he is at that exact table, and he thinks the one closer to the counter might be better. No, this one’s good, he thinks, sniffling a bit and adjusting the hem of his t-shirt. This one is fine. Sunlight coming in, right by the air conditioning, easy access to the exit if things start going south…

10:57 rolls around and Stiles chews on his thumb. He should’ve just gotten a coffee, but he thought it would be rude to do so when Derek hasn’t gotten here yet. So he’s sat here, coffeeless in a coffee shop, for half an hour, looking like a god damn idiot. It just doesn’t get any lower than this.

10:58, and Stiles breathes in and out through his nose deeply. Reminds himself he’s had successful conversations with Derek that, yes, were online, but who cares? Online counts. He can be as charming in real life as he is online. It’s not hard. Jesus Christ.

At exactly eleven o’clock on the dot, because honestly, what else would Stiles possibly expect from Derek, the front door ting-tings open with the telltale sound of that god damn bell that’s had Stiles looking over his shoulder in terror every five minutes for the past half an hour – and then there he is. It is unmistakably him.

He looks exactly like his picture. Big and tan and sexy as all hell, and he’s dressed pretty much like how Stiles had imagined. He’s got on dark jeans and a green t-shirt, sunglasses on until he gets all the way inside and then tucks them gently in the v of his shirt, and Stiles licks his lips. This is fucking absurd.

Derek’s eyes scan over the perimeter of the room, over Scott, who sits there and stares at him with his jaw hanging open as if he’s just seen a phantom in real life, and then they finally land on Stiles and settle. Stiles’ palms go clammy and he has this horrible thought that Derek is almost certainly going to find Stiles ugly, horrible, and he’s going to turn tail and run the other way just as soon as Stiles’ back is turned.

Instead, Derek’s face splits into an honest-to-God grin that Stiles hadn’t thought him capable of, and he starts moving forward. His face with that kind of a smile on it is different – lighter, different from any pictures of himself he has up, and much more inviting. Stiles didn’t think guys who make profiles of themselves on the internet calling themselves dominant types could smile like that, but there Derek is doing it, and he’s coming straight for Stiles, and Stiles is just sitting there.

He stands up as Derek gets closer. Has a stupid, negative idiot thought that Derek is just going to keep walking, and keep walking, right past him, but then he doesn’t. He walks right up to Stiles, smiles at him that same gentle and sincere way. He points to a place on Stiles’ face with a finger that Stiles goes cross-eyed at, and says, “I recognize these.”

His voice is smooth and not what Stiles had imagined, and he’s pointing right at Stiles’ moles. Stiles can’t think of a single thing to say. All wittiness is gone. He’s a blank slate, his mind empty, and he thinks he can hear the pitter patter of tiny gears turning, or at the very least trying to turn, inside of his head. He says, “my name is Stiles,” because it’s all he can think of.

There’s this split second where Stiles swears he sees recognition of the name, but it’s gone in an instant, and Derek’s easy-going smile is back. He nods his head and repeats it back. “Stiles,” he says, like he’s testing out how it tastes in his mouth. He must like it, because he smiles wider. “Let’s get you a coffee, then?”

“Yes,” Stiles agrees instantly, and then they’re walking towards the counter. On the walk over he, idiotically, can only think to say, “you are tall,” to which Derek nods his head.

“Barely taller than you, but I am.”

“You look like you go running.” Stiles wants to punch himself in the face. “I don’t really work out. My body is a very thin ritz cracker, you know?”

Derek gives him a look. It’s not an annoyed or disgusted or regretful look – he looks…amused. They stand in line and Derek looks at him with that expression, and Stiles sort of wants to melt. “I lift weights and drink the protein shakes, yes. Although the Ritz cracker reference is a bit lost on me.”

“Um,” Stiles starts, brilliantly, and then they’re blessedly next in line and the girl behind the counter is demanding their order, and Stiles can finally take his fucking foot out of his mouth. “Can I get an iced sixteen ounce coconut mocha with two percent and a caramel drizzle?”

Derek blinks, and says, “I’ll just have a black cold brew, thanks.”

She tallies it up, and Stiles reaches down for his wallet to pay for his share of the coffee, but Derek stops his wrist as soon as he sees what Stiles has got. Stiles is opening his mouth to protest, but before he can get a word in edgewise, the girl is swiping his credit card and then handing it back to him.

Stiles raises his eyebrows, impressed, and then turns around to try and meet Scott’s eyes. He’s clearly seen this entire exchange, because he gives Stiles the double thumbs up, like he, too, is very impressed.

He turns back around, and then Derek is guiding him over to the waiting area where only one other girl is milling around, looking at her phone and chewing bubble gum. Derek hovers his hand over Stiles’ lower back – not touching, but almost. It’s…nice. He says, “you like coffee, I guess.”

“Yeaahhh,” Stiles says, a bit bashful. “I’m one of those annoying people, I hate to break it to you.” He looks Derek over one more time, and can’t help himself from word vomiting. “You really do work out, huh?”

“I’m not the Incredible Hulk.” He pauses for a moment, mulling it over. “Compared to you, I guess I might be.”

“Like a Ritz cracker,” Stiles pats his upper arms lovingly, and Derek smiles at him like he thinks Stiles is cute. Then, Stiles has to remind himself that Derek has, in the past, thought that Stiles was cute, and he blushes and looks away. “I realize you never mentioned many hobbies when we talked on the uh – whatever.”

“You, neither.”

“I’m a big fan of couching it. You know. Potato chips, Netflix, feet on the coffee table.”

Derek looks him up and down, and Stiles feels his face burn. “You look too thin for that to be your main activity.”

“Thin?” Stiles scoffs. “Try lean, my friend. Lean and trim.”

He smiles again, and then their drinks come up. Derek reaches out and takes Stiles’ for him, shoving the straw in and handing it off to him like it’s normal and no big deal, before he even so much as looks at his own. Stiles sips, and Derek does that thing where he guides Stiles forward again without even really touching him, and then they’re back at the table that Stiles had picked out at the beginning.

Derek waits for Stiles to sit first, and then sits right next to him, so close their knees touch underneath the table. Stiles focuses on his drink for a moment, because it’s very well made and delicious, and out of the corner of his eye, he feels Derek staring at him. It’s a real, real stare too – like, a solid, steady, eyes boring into the side of his face, stare.

Stiles slowly turns his eyes to look at him, and Derek immediately looks away. “I’m sorry,” he laughs, seeming a bit embarrassed. “I’m staring. It’s just uh –“ he gestures to his face, right around his eyes, “the eyes thing?”

Stiles drops his drink on the table with a thwap and nods empathically. “Dude. I know. When I first saw your picture with the eyes, I freaked out. It was the weirdest fucking thing,” he looks at his hands, shrugging, turning to look Derek right in the eyes. “Must be even weirder seeing mine for the first time in person.”

“Yeah,” he agrees slowly, not breaking Stiles’ eye contact. “Weird is one word. Also, you have really insanely beautiful eyes.”

Stiles blushes so hard he thinks he could go up in flames, and he has to lower his eyes to stare down at his drink, smile curling over his features as his nose scrunches up. Derek watches the entire thing, like his eyes are transfixed, or something, and he has no choice but to stare. “I like that reaction,” he says, reaching two fingers out to brush gently against Stiles’ red cheek. It’s the first time they’ve really touched. The contact is like lightning.

To fend off the red in his face, Stiles drinks some more of his coffee, raising his eyebrows at Derek. A few seconds pass, and then Derek looks somewhere past Stiles’ head. He pauses, then looks back to Stiles. “Is that your friend over there?”

Stiles barely glances in Scott’s direction. He says, “by the bathrooms? Yeah.”

Derek blinks, looking back past Stiles. “He’s incredibly discrete.”

Stiles looks over himself, and finds Scott staring, point blank, no cover whatsoever, in their direction. He’s not even drinking coffee. He’s just sitting there, staring. Once he sees both of them looking in his direction, he pretends to be fascinated by his own hand, frowning and squinting like he’s just realized he even had a palm.

Stiles turns back and sighs through his nose. “That’s the way he stares at the girl he has a crush on that works at the mall,” he explains, and Derek smiles, “you see now why he’s single.”

“Is he the one that took the picture?” He looks at Scott again, and his smile gets bigger. “It’s somehow even funnier now.”

“Come on,” Stiles reaches out and shoves Derek shoulder, annoyed. “It’s not that funny. Your pictures all looked pretty posed to me, too.”

“One of my sisters is a photographer. Of course mine are a bit posed.”

“Oh, right. Big fancy man, fancy pictures,” Stiles waggles his fingers in the air and rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “What do you do anyway? You’ve got nice as hell clothes and probably nice as hell cars, and your pictures all looked like they were taken on vacation on a tropical island somewhere. You’ve got money.”

“I do have money,” he says, easily as all get out. “You think I go on the internet finding boys looking for sugar daddies because I don’t?”

Stiles leans in, putting his hands on the table and clasping them together, eyebrows raised into his hairline. “Oh, this is something you do. You’ve done this before.”

“Aw, mind games? Already?” He smiles, though, seemingly genuinely amused. “I’ve done it before, yeah, unsuccessfully.”

“Unsuccessful in what way?”

“In the way that nothing ever came of it. I’ve talked to a lot of people on that messaging platform, but I’ve never met any of them in person, not ever before.” He sips his coffee, looks Stiles up and down again. “You’re the first one.”

“I guess that’s meant to make me feel special,” Stiles says, and truth to be told, he sorta does.

“A bit, yeah.”

Stiles looks at him, and Derek looks back, and something passes through them. An electric charge, or a dare, or a silent understanding, or all three at once. “So,” Stiles presses, “what do you do?”

Derek blinks, and then he says, with little to no inflection, “I work in finance.”

He waits, and he waits, but no further explanation comes. “That’s it?”

“It’s just really not that interesting, and I’m not enthusiastic about boring you,” he leans in a bit closer, so his knee really is touching Stiles’ now - rubbing against it and making Stiles shiver a bit. “I know you’re not particularly interested in being bored, yourself.”

“I’m not,” Stiles agrees.

Derek looks at him, scans his eyes all over Stiles’ face as if he’s playing connect the dots with Stiles’ moles. He leans in close, very close, and practically breathes across Stiles’ face as he speaks in a low murmur. “What color is it today?”

Stiles swallows, feels Derek’s eyes watching his throat bob with the movement, and tries his level hardest not to blush. Even harder not to break Derek’s eye contact. He can be sexy, he reminds himself, blinking his eyelashes that he knows are long and that he knows Derek thinks are pretty, and lifts one corner of his mouth into a coy smile. He says, “purple. Royal purple, almost.”

Derek licks his lips. “If I asked you to take me into the bathroom and show me, what are the odds you’d say yes?”

He pretends to roll that thought around in his head, tossing it from side to side and making a thinking face, tapping his chin with his index finger. “Hmmm…” he says, squinting off into space like he’s really, really thinking about it. “Slim to none.”

Derek laughs. It’s this incredulous, ball-busted laugh that Stiles thinks he’s going to have to get used to. He laughs, and he shakes his head, and pulls his phone out and sets it down on the table, sliding it over to Stiles’ side. “Can I ask you to put your real number in my phone?”

“Absolutely,” Stiles says without even thinking about it, going into Derek’s contacts and making a new one.

“And can I text you to set up another date? I’d like to take you to dinner.”

Stiles smiles down at the phone as he taps his number in. “Dinner might get you a peek.”

“I can have a car come pick you up.”

“Oh,” Stiles’ eyebrows raise, and he pushes Derek’s phone back to him. “Now you’re talking your way up to a touch.”

Derek takes his phone, shoving it down deep into his pocket. Then, without a warning, he’s taking Stiles gently by the front of shirt and pulling his face in right next to Stiles’ ear, pressing his mouth against the shell of it and whispering all low and sexy, right there. “I hope you remember all this power you had when I’ve got you tied up in my bed.”

He stands, leaving Stiles sitting there wide eyed and slack jawed, and gently runs his hand up and down Stiles’ back. “I’ll text you.”

He saunters out the door, leaving his half-finished coffee behind, while Stiles just sits there. He breathes out, looks over his shoulder to watch Derek vanish down the sidewalk, and shakes his head. Holy shit, he thinks. Holy fucking shit.


	2. Red.

Possible Daddy, 2:45 PM : What’s a good night for you, sweetheart?   
Me, 2:47 PM : Weekends are excellent. Friday night is all right as well. I’ve got a nine to five sooo.   
Possible Daddy, 2:49 PM : Friday night, then? I’ll get you picked up at around seven o’clock?   
Me, 2:51 PM : Sounds really nice. Where are we going?   
Possible Daddy, 2:54 PM : You’ll see.  
Possible Daddy, 2:54 PM : Wear red. I’ll bet it looks good on you.  
Me, 2:55 PM : You mean outside? Or… (:   
Possible Daddy, 2:58 PM : Both.   
Me, 3:00 PM : I haven’t got red underwear, hate to tell you ): just not in the budget!   
Possible Daddy, 3:04 PM : I’ll see what I can do about that. Just wear what you always wear. Boy clothes.   
Me, 3:06 PM : You mean pants and a shirt. Like what everyone wears.   
Possible Daddy, 3:08 PM : I just like thinking about you dressed like that and no one knows you’re wearing a sexy little lace number underneath it all.  
Possible Daddy, 3:09 PM : And I even more like thinking about being the one who gets to unwrap you like that.   
Me, 3:11 PM : Okay, for real, can you pleeaseee buy me red lacies and tie me up and just fuck me already? Enough talk, like…  
Possible Daddy, 3:13 PM : Baby.   
Possible Daddy, 3:13 PM : When I buy you a present and get you tied up, I’m not going to just “fuck you” already.   
Possible Daddy, 3:14 PM : I’m going to take my time.   
Me, 3:16 PM : sooo…you ARE going to buy me red lacies, though?

***

Derek had instructed Stiles to sit outside his condo for him to arrive, so that’s what he’s doing. He’s got on red converse, nice pants, and a red button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, perched on his stoop with his chin in his palm. Derek said he’d be here at six thirty, and it’s currently…six twenty-seven.  
If what Stiles has learned thus far is to be believed, then Derek will be here at six thirty on the dot and not a second later. True to form, Stiles checks his phone right on time to see the numbers switch over to 30, and just like that, there’s a long black limo pulling onto his street. Stiles doesn’t have to wait and see if it pulls over outside his house. There’s no doubt that that’s Derek.

He stands up and starts walking to the curb, while the limo slows and pulls itself up right in front of him. It keeps going and going like a long black snake, stopping right when Stiles’ body and the back door match up with one another. Before Stiles has the chance to reach out and grab the handle, it pops open, and Derek is stepping out.

He’s all long and big, pulling himself up on strong legs and smiling that same smile he always has for Stiles; self-confident and somewhat in charge, while at the same time simply being a genuine smile. He’s in all black. Stiles could’ve figured.

“After you,” he holds the door open for Stiles, who just sort of stands there and presses his lips together to keep from grinning. After a moment of eye contact, Stiles leans down, Derek’s hand on the back of his head to make sure he doesn’t smack it onto anything, and climbs inside.

“Holy shit,” he says as he goes, and Derek follows in after him with a slam of the door. “It smells like a leather store in here.”

“It’s all leather seating, so,” Derek says, settling down right as the car begins to move again. It’s dark in here, Stiles notes, looking around. All black leather, tinted windows, and the driver feels like he’s a fucking mile away from where the two of them are sitting all the way in the back. It’s not exactly what Stiles would call cozy, but Derek is right there next to him, so somehow, it is.

Derek rips the cork off an already popped bottle of champagne – “opened it safely in my kitchen at home,” he explains – and steadily pours two flutes full of the bubbles like it’s not hard for him at all to do that in a moving vehicle. It’s a smooth ride, don’t get Stiles wrong, but he has to admit he’s a little impressed.

He hands one off to Stiles, holds his own. Stiles bites his lip when they clink their glasses together, feeling both ridiculous and sorta badass at the same time. When Derek raises his drink to his lips to take a sip, Stiles stops him abruptly, grabbing his wrist.

“Can we do that thing where we, like, cross our arms,” he gestures, champagne nearly spilling over onto the fine seats as he does so. “It’s always in movies, and I wanna do it.”

“All right,” Derek looks like he’s humoring Stiles, and nothing more. He leans forward, wrapping Stiles’ arm around his own so that Derek’s glass is in Stiles’ face and Stiles’ glass is in Derek’s face. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Stiles says, and they sip. They don’t break each other’s eye contact as they do so, and it’s bizarrely intimate and sexy, staring at each other while their arms are linked, sipping champagne in the backseat of a fucking limousine. Stiles thinks he’s really in a movie, now.

The sip is over with, but they still stare. Seconds tick by, both of them just holding their glasses, and then Derek leans in closer. He pauses when he’s only two inches away, gauging Stiles’ reaction. When Stiles doesn’t pull back, or do much of anything but breathe across Derek’s face and lick his lips, Derek takes that as an invitation, and kisses him.

It’s a real kiss, too. It’s not just a peck on the lips, or a brief smooch-smooch. It’s a kiss. Stiles angles his body so Derek can get at his mouth better, and puts his hand on the side of Derek’s face, while Derek drops his own on Stiles’ thigh and runs it up and down, and up and down. They kiss for what feels like a solid minute and a half, before pulling back and looking at one another again.

There’s that same electric current that Stiles and Derek get when they look at each other, again. Like they both go starry eyed with one another, amazed to be here at all.

Without another word, they keep their eyes on one another, and simultaneously down their respective glasses in two or three glugs. Once they’re both empty and the fear of spilling anything on fine Italian leather or whatever-the-hell is completely gone, they’re on top of each other like they can’t help themselves.

Derek grabs Stiles by his hips and pulls him flush up against him, hard enough that it elicits a little gasp from the back of Stiles’ throat. Derek swallows the sound down in his own mouth, pressing their lips together again, hands roaming Stiles’ chest. Stiles climbs on top of him without a second thought, straddling him while he ducks his head into Derek’s shoulder to keep from bumping it on the ceiling.

Derek kisses Stiles’ neck, all hungry and desperate, and Stiles cannot believe they’ve barely been fucking alone together for five whole minutes, and this is already what they’re doing. Stiles figures that texting back and forth about all the things they wanna do to one another can do that to two people – just make them act fucking crazy.

When Derek pulls back, he rests his neck on the seat rest behind him and looks up at Stiles through hooded eyes, gently touching Stiles with the pads of his fingers, right along his chest. “Do I get that touch now?”

Stiles grins at him, pressing himself just a bit harder against Derek’s body. “You can get that look, now.”

Like that’s not what he wants, not at all, but what he’ll have to settle for, Derek sighs through his nose and gestures for Stiles to go on ahead and do it for him. Stiles sits up as much as he can, fingers fumbling along his belt buckle until he undoes it, and then the button and zipper on his pants. He holds them open as wide as he can, pushing them just a bit down his hips so Derek can nearly see the entire picture. “Pink,” Stiles says, like Derek can’t see it himself. “Closest thing to red I got.”

Derek takes in the whole sight of it, from the mesh lace pattern to the slightly damp patch on the front from Stiles leaking a bit of precome just from making out with him, and licks his lips. It’s probably the sexiest thing Stiles has ever seen – it immediately calls to mind the image of him licking at Stiles through the underwear like eating out a girl, and it makes Stiles’ dick twitch. Derek looks up at Stiles, his eyes dark. Dark, dark, dark.

He reaches his hand out like he’s going to run his fingers just along the very top of them, just a little little touch, but Stiles grabs his wrist with a smack of their skin meeting, a smile pulling up his lips. “Ah, ah, ah.”

Derek hurrumphs, pulling his hand away while he gives Stiles this look. It’s all dark eyes and a smirking twist to his mouth, a crease in his brow like he’s putting some exertion into not throwing Stiles to the ground and tearing all his clothes off then and there. Instead, he picks Stiles up by his hips and gently puts him down on the seat right next to him, off of Derek completely.

“I didn’t say we can’t do anything,” Stiles half-whines, reaching out to try and climb on top of him again. Derek stops him with a single hand in the air, and for whatever reason, it’s enough to have Stiles pausing.

“I’m going to feed you, first,” he says, matter-of-fact, and Stiles huffs. “You’ll see all the things we can do once I’ve got you back in my bedroom.”

Stiles bites his lip and stares at the side of Derek’s face, imagining it. He’s imagining red satin sheets and a canopy, a big window overlooking the whole city. “Tell me how badly you want to touch me,” he says, voice low, and Derek looks at him. “I just want to hear you say it. Get me through dinner.”

There’s a smile on Derek’s face, and the limo is coming to a stop. Stiles has no fucking idea where they are – no clue whatsoever how far they’ve come from Stiles and Scott’s condo, he’s just been so wrapped up in Derek and Derek alone. They sit in the dark for a moment, and Stiles can at least tell there’s a parking lot light hanging somewhere to their left. “I’ve jerked off to that picture you sent me at least twenty times, bare minimum,” he says, popping open the door and raising his eyebrows. “That gives you an idea.”

And boy, it does. Stiles imagines Derek in his fancy office building doing the finance thing, whatever the hell that is, and just being distracted the entire time. Thinking about Stiles in those stupid fucking lace underwear. Having to jerk off in his company’s bathroom hoping he’s being quiet enough. Jesus Christ.

Derek comes around the limo and opens Stiles’ door for him, holding his hand out for Stiles to take. Stiles does, and out he comes, and he looks around himself. When he sees the restaurant they’re parked right in front of, he nearly blacks out. “Oh, man,” he says, while Derek slams the door behind them and gives some signal to the driver as they walk past the windshield, “the Silver Snake?”

“The Silver Snake,” Derek agrees, and Stiles goes giddy.

Aside from having one of the single worst restaurant titles in all restaurant history, the Silver Snake is also the nicest place in Beacon Hills, bar none. Fucking Anthony Bourdain has come here before, swishing wine around in his glass and touting about how great this little city is, how cool the people are, and how good the fucking food was. Prices at that place all but doubled after the exposure that episode of his show got him, and Stiles hasn’t set foot in here since, terrified of the hundred dollar steak on the menu.

Derek opens the door for him, guides him inside with his hand on the small of Stiles’ back – actually touching this time instead of just hovering, which Stiles assumes is because Derek figures he can touch Stiles all he wants now that they’ve kissed and all. He asks for the reservation under the name Hale, the hostess smiles at them all huge like she’s been told this is her most expensive patron of the night, and gestures for he and Stiles to follow her with an elegant jerk of her head.

She leads them through the main dining hall, Derek ahead of him. Stiles grabs onto his shoulders and presses himself against Derek’s back, so he can murmur in his ear as they walk. “I haven’t been in here since I was a kid,” he says, and Derek raises his eyebrows. “My mother’s last birthday, I think. My dad really shelled out.”

They go past everyone else, all the nice candles and the atmosphere, and they just keep going. Stiles expects they’ll wind up in some private little booth off to the side, but then they pass all of those as well, and he’s confused.

He’s not so confused when she leads them up to a pair of double doors all the way in the back, grabbing both handles and pulling them open with a bit of a flourish. Stiles stands there in the doorway for a moment, completely flabbergasted, because, holy shit, “the fountain room?”

“The fountain room,” Derek repeats back to him, stepping all the way inside and looking over his shoulder with a big grin.

“I’ve never actually been in here,” he caws, barreling his way in and making a beeline for the walls. He’s only seen this on television, yes the Anthony Bourdain show, but now he’s standing here, and it’s even cooler than he thought it was on screen. There are little fountains up on the ceilings, going the entire length of the room, so water drips down the filmy walls that shine like there are lights behind them, going purple to pink to blue and then back to purple again. The water pitter patters into a little river down around their feet about a foot wide. It runs underneath their table, the only one in the room, covered by glass so they can see fish milling around down below and not worry about stepping on them. “A koi fish!”

Stiles squats down to get a better look at him, putting his finger on the glass and following along with the fish’s movements.

“I’ll take it we’re pleased,” the hostess says with a pep to her tone.

“I guess we’re very pleased, thanks,” is what Derek has to say in return, and then she’s telling them their waitress will be along shortly, and leaving them alone in the ambiance.

Stiles stands back up to his full height and takes some more time to just look around, a little awestruck. The only other lights in the room aside from the ones behind the walls are candles on the table, three short ones that’ll sit right in between Stiles and Derek, and other than that, the lights just shine across their faces. Derek looks particularly good looking in the blue light, like it plays off his skin tone very well, and Stiles wonders which color Derek thinks Stiles looks best in.

Derek pulls a chair out and gestures for Stiles to sit, so he does, wordlessly. He doesn’t think he has anything to say, honestly. He’s awestruck.

Sitting across from him, Derek smiles, opens up what has to be the wine list, and holds it out over the candle light for Stiles to take. “You pick one.”

“Aaalllll right,” he grins, thrilled at the prospect of expensive alcohol on someone else’s tab. “You like red or white?”

“White.”

“Very, very good answer. You like a chard?”

“I can tolerate it,” he says, and Stiles shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t know much about fancy wines, you know. Something tells me my salary doesn’t even hold a candle to whatever’s going on inside that wallet just at this exact moment.”

“Isn’t that why you went on that site to begin with?” There’s a gentle hint of teasing in Derek’s voice as he speaks, raising his eyebrows. His face is so fucking good looking in the lighting it’s hard to really be annoyed. “You wanted someone to buy you things you can’t afford?”

Stiles wishes he had something to sip on already, just to hide his face. “Part of why,” he says evasively, and then the waitress appears through the double doors. The sounds of the outside restaurant are completely and utterly silenced in this room, like the walls are soundproof, so when she opens the doors, it alerts them both to her presence.

She clicks her pen and approaches with a broad smile, pad already out and ready to go. “I see we’re perusing the wine list,” he says to Stiles, who nods back enthusiastically.

“We are indeed perusing. Let me ask you a question…” he places the menu down flat on the edge of the table in her direction, so she can lean over and look at it. “If you had to pick between this rose’, and this chardonnay, which one would you go for? You sample the wines here, right?”

“Oh, we’re big on sampling,” she grins at him, all the while Derek sort of stares at the both of them like he’s never in his life had a conversation with a waitress that wasn’t him ordering one of them around. “Just my opinion, but the rose’ is a much better choice.”

“Well, all right,” he glances in Derek’s direction, meeting his eyes. “Bottle?” He noted that the prices aren’t listed. Likely because everyone who comes in here buying bottles of wine doesn’t give a shit about the price.

“Bottle,” Derek agrees, and she nods and hurries off out of the doors to get it for them. As soon as she’s gone, Stiles sets his eyes on Derek a bit shrewdly, eyeballing him seriously.

“Are you a bit of an asshole?” He asks, and Derek laughs. It echoes off the top of the ceiling and is a little bit infectious, so Stiles can’t help but smile with him.

“Ah, a tiny bit, I guess. I’m not necessarily friendly. I’m not mean, I don’t think.”

“I don’t think, either,” Stiles says.

“But I’m not – you, I guess.”

“That’s okay. I can be friendly enough for the both of us. You tip at least twenty percent?”

“Oh, I tip a solid thirty. It’s to make up for the assholery.”

“I was a waiter for, like, all of college. I gotta look out for my fellow service workers, you know?” He taps his fingers and opens up the menu, starting with the appetizers. There’s a tempura bean cup listed for twenty-five dollars. He swallows and hides his smile behind his hand.

“What do you do now? I don’t think minimum wage could pay for you and your friend’s condo.”

“Scott,” he corrects, because it’s about time Derek stopped referring to him as your friend. “And it’s just a shitty desk job. I’m a secretary over at The Daily Beacon.”

“Oh,” Derek raises his eyebrows. “Can I guess you majored in journalism?”

“Guess away. I want to be a real writer with a weekly. The pay is pennies, but,” he shrugs, and Derek shrugs along with him. “That’s what I need a sugar daddy for.”

Before Derek can give an answer to that, the waitress is back. She sets a metal cooler full of ice down, slaps a shiny and pink bottle of rose’ on the table, and makes a big show of popping the cork. Stiles watches, interested, while Derek mostly just leans back in his chair and stares at the side of Stiles’ face.

She gets it open, pours both of their glasses with some kind of a technique, and then sets the bottle down for them in the ice. “Have we had a chance to look at the menu?”

“We’re still looking,” he says with a smile. “But I’m gonna go ahead and get us the kalamari to start. Okay?” He checks with Derek again, who tips his head like he’s fine with it. “Okay.”

“Excellent,” she says, and Stiles is already attacking his wine glass as she’s walking back out into the dining room. Stiles takes a big sip, rolls it around in his mouth and pretends like he’s a somm or something, and swallows.

“That,” he starts, pulling his glass away and swishing it around a bit, “is certainly a pink.”

Derek smiles at him, takes a sip of his own, and nods his agreement. “Good choice.”

The waitress comes back some five minutes later to probe them more about the menu, and luckily, Stiles and Derek both know what they want and order quickly. Stiles gets a ravioli with about sixteen different ingredients stuffed inside that costs more than the pants he has on, and Derek gets a steak which is exactly what Stiles could have predicted, and then they’re alone again.

Derek takes a big sip of his wine, leans across the table so the candlelight catches his face. “Let me ask you something. I know that probably there’s a lot we could talk about,” he waves his hand, like it’s all semantics for the moment. “You know I read your kink profile.”

Stiles can’t help but blush, looking away at the water dripping down the sides of the walls. He might be kinky in a lot of respects, and in even more respects is a bit brazen about it, but thinking about Derek going through the entire thing and looking at each individual mark has him feeling a little exposed.

“But that’s what the whole website is based on. As if your kinks are all I need to know.” He puts his glass down and looks Stiles in the eye, cocking his head to the side. “I want to know what you’re looking for. Not the kinks, specifically, but the – you and me.”

Stiles runs his finger along the lip of his glass and bites his lip, trying to think of how to approach this. Honesty just might be the best way to go, and if Derek doesn’t like anything he says, then that’s on him. And it’d be better to just get it out of the way and over with now than to drag anything out for too long while they’re not even on the same page. “I’m not a hook-up person,” he says, clean out with it. “I’m a relationship slut, it’s just how I am. I don’t want to be your, like, thing on the side or just someone you screw around with.”

“All right,” Derek agrees, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“I uh –“ he shifts, daring himself to just come out with it. “I am looking for what I said I was on the site. I want to be tied up and I want you to have control over me sometimes and all that but I also…you know.” He shrugs, a bit of a blush coming to his face. “I want you to take me out. I know other people treat relationships like these like the sex is all there is, but for me, I don’t know. I like romance and being treated nicely. I don’t want some weird contract where you tell me what to eat, I just want to have fun and be in a relationship. You know?”

Throughout Stiles’ whole spiel, Derek mostly just listened with a tiny smile on his face, like he liked what he was hearing. Which is, frankly, a relief. Because so far, Derek has been pretty much nothing but exactly what Stiles wants and needs in his life, and he couldn’t handle it if Derek came out with some bullshit about how he wants to lock Stiles up in a cage or something.

When the silence goes on for a bit too long, Stiles presses. “What are you looking for?”

Derek nods. “A relationship, like you.” He leans in a bit more, voice lowering in a way that’s sexy enough to make Stiles hard all over again, like in the limousine. “You want someone to control you in bed, I like controlling people. And I like taking good looking things like you out to show off. I think we match up.”

Stiles bites his lip and buries his face in his glass, feeling giddy and a little lightheaded. He downs the rest of his wine in one go, and just as he’s reaching for the bottle, the doors open, and the kalamari has come. Stiles perks up instantly, his stomach grumbling, and she makes quick work of rearranging the candles so the plate can sit right in between them. She sets them each up with a little side plate, and without even asking, picks up the bottle and pours Stiles another. “God bless you,” he says, and she laughs and wishes them happy eats.

After his third or fourth little squid, Stiles licks his fingers and nods in appreciation. “I think we match up, too,” he continues the earlier conversation, and Derek pops a kalamari in his mouth and smiles. He’s got his napkin in his lap, like a real gentleman. Meanwhile, Stiles just rubs his dirty fingers off on his pants and keeps going.

“So, then, I can bank on you for a third date?”

“Yes,” he agrees instantly, and finishes off his second glass of wine. He pours himself another, and Derek watches like he’s going to say something, and then just doesn’t, leaning back in his chair with a smirk and sighing through his nose. “This shit is so good. And I love these fish, dude.”

“We’ve just gotta think of something better for you to call me than that.”

“Oh, yeah?” Stiles taps his temple and licks his lips. “I’ve already thought of something. You just haven’t earned it yet.”

Derek laughs, a big belly thing that has Stiles smiling right back at him as he chews on his food some more. He says, “God, I love a mouthy bottom.”

“That’s me.” He looks down at his feet, staring down into the lit up little stream under the glass as a beta fish swims along, pretty and blue in the lights. “Do you think if I asked to take one home, they’d think I were a freak?”

“The fish are not for sale,” Derek says like he’s sure of it and it’s a ridiculous question anyway. “If you want a fish, I’ll get you one from an actual fish store, or whatever.”

“Yeaahhhh…” Stiles trails off, sipping his drink. “I don’t really want a fish if it’s not one of these ones specifically.”

“Christ,” Derek shakes his head, but he smiles all the same. Truth to be told, Stiles isn’t entirely sure if Derek knows what he’s getting into. Even more true, he isn’t entirely sure he knows what he’s getting into himself.

Dinner goes by, and Stiles’ food is incredible, and the fish are awesome, and Derek is easy to talk to and makes Stiles laugh and vice versa, and before he knows it, he’s drunk. And not just wine tipsy in an appropriate way at a fancy restaurant drunk. But drunk as in, stumbling home from the bar at three am with his arms wrapped around Scott completely fucking wasted.

“I should’ve had her cap the wine at some point,” Derek observes as he signs the check after paying the bill. “She brought three bottles. I had three glasses. You, on the other hand…”

Stiles had…at bare minimum, eight glasses of wine. There are four glasses in every bottle, which means there were twelve meant to be consumed by both of them, and Derek only had three, so…uh. Yeah.

“The pink packs a punch,” he says, and can’t tell how much he slurs as he says it, but Derek blinks at him across the table, so he knows it must be a lot. “I went too far. I admit it. Let’s just get it out on the table.”

“Oookkayyy,” Derek trails it off, shoving his credit card back into his wallet and leaving the signed receipt for the waitress to collect. “Let’s go. C’mon.” He’s standing up and coming to Stiles’ side of the table, pulling his chair out and gently putting his hands on Stiles’ shoulders to haul him up. Right. Because Stiles stumbles a bit and nearly falls, gets caught by Derek’s big hands, and then he’s being led away from the table.

“I want a fish,” he repeats from before, pointing down at their feet where he can see the blurry form of a blue one swimming by. “Derek, no. Stop. I want one of these.”

“I will buy you ten blue fish,” he promises, pausing by the door while he rearranges his arms on Stiles to look a bit more normal. “I need you to be normal out there, all right? Hey, Stiles,” he laughs a bit, because Stiles is still intensely fixated on the blurry blue fish. “Listen. I need you cool and composed. Just walk, be quiet, okay?”

“Fine, sure, whatever,” he agrees, and Derek looks at him like he doesn’t entirely trust that sentiment at all. All the same, they have to get out of here, so Derek pushes the doors open, and out they go.

It’s fine, at first. They walk, Derek keeping his arm around Stiles’ shoulders to keep him steady and guide him from tripping on the leg of any stray chairs, and Stiles is happy as a clam. This place is awesome, he thinks, looking around with a dopey smile on his face. People barely glance at them as they pass, and for whatever bizarre reason, he sort of wants to lean in to the first person he’s close enough to so he can whisper in their ear that the guy whose arm he’s on just paid a nine hundred dollar restaurant bill without even batting an eyelash.

Instead, he points a bit too boldly at one of the paintings on the wall and shouts, “dude, is that a fucking original Basquiat?”

Derek laughs, and the restaurant sort of goes a bit quiet around them. He knows that there are some rich uppity fucks staring down their noses at him because he’s in converse in a fancy restaurant and he’s clearly not a member of their rich-bitch club, but he just doesn’t give a fuck. “That is a Monet print,” Derek says, and Stiles stares at it harder. All he can see is a fucking Basquiat. How drunk is he? “Come on, come on, almost there.”

They stagger out of the restaurant, in the wake of about two dozen pairs of eyes staring at them, and Derek huffs a laugh out in the open air. “I’ve made a mental note to watch your wine consumption.”

“I don’t usually drink so much,” he feels the need to point out, leaning his head against Derek’s shoulder while Derek pretty much drags him through the parking lot. “Just – it was bottomless.”

“Yes, it was.”

“It had no bottom.”

“None whatsoever. Here we are.” They’re at the limo, and Derek is opening up the door and then gently pushing Stiles inside. Stiles flops down onto the seat like a big long octopus, all spread out, and Derek huffs himself in right beside him. He has to arrange Stiles’ legs away from him to give him room to sit, so then Stiles just spreads them out over his lap and then the car is moving.

Derek puts his fingers on Stiles’ ankle and peers at him a bit, while Stiles stares up and watches the limo ceiling spin. “I am fucking drunk.”

“Yup,” Derek assesses.

“You are really, really sexy. I feel I haven’t said that yet. Hey, you wanna…” he undoes his belt, and Derek parts his lips. He grabs at Derek’s wrist and tries to pull it over so he can get that touch on Stiles’ underwear he’s been wanting, but Derek resists with a huff of a laugh.

“Not right now, baby. You’re drunk.”

Stiles concedes to that point very easily, releasing Derek’s hand but leaving his pants wide open. “Okay,” he sighs, and then everything from that point on is just forgotten.

***

Stiles wakes up with a dry mouth, a headache pounding through his skull, and his clothes on. He sits up, disoriented, and finds himself in a big bed. It’s gotta be king sized, which is the weirdest assessment to make out of all the ones he could – because he does not recognize this room. He gets scared for a second, confused and puzzled as he grips fine and soft sheets underneath himself, and then last night comes back to him.  
Derek and the restaurant and the wine and the limo ride home. Right. Stiles got fucking wasted last night at a fancy restaurant and Derek carted him home. Except, not home home.

This is Derek’s bedroom. It has to be. If it isn’t, Stiles is in a lot of fucking trouble. But just looking around and assessing what he can with his eyes half squinted shut, he’s pretty certain. There’s a bedside table with a watch and a familiar wallet sitting on it, a glass of water and a bottle of advil right next to it. Then, the dresser across the way, a walk in closet with the lights off, and a door shut up tight with the light on underneath. Stiles smacks his lips and groans, palming his forehead.

Did they have sex last night?

No. He looks down at himself. He still has his socks on. His pants, and his shirt and his socks are still on. And his belt is buckled. He would be so fucking annoyed if the first time he and Derek had sex was forgotten in the land of drunkenness, and beyond that, he would be…creeped out. If Derek had sex with him while he was fucking blackout.

But clearly, they didn’t. Derek must have just dumped Stiles here, buckled his belt back up because Stiles does remember undoing it and trying to shove Derek’s hand down there, and left him to sleep.

Confirming all his suspicions, the closed door across the way opens and a cloud of steam comes out, and then Derek is poking his head out. His hair is wet and he looks vaguely amused as he gazes at Stiles across the room. “How do you feel?” He asks, smile him on his face.

“Fuck off,” he grumbles, curling himself into the comforter and wanting to drop dead.

“The water and advil is for you.”

“I abruptly like you again.” He reaches over and grabs at the bottle desperately, popping himself two liquigels and swallowing them around a big gulp of water. Derek emerges all the way from the bathroom, dressed and fresh looking, completely the opposite of Stiles, and Stiles is a little annoyed. He’s a lot annoyed. He’s hungover as shit and not in the mood for just about anything. “Ugh, man.” He palms his face with both hands and just huffs. “Wine.”

“Wine hangovers are terrible,” Derek agrees, crossing the room and entering his closet with a flick of the light. Stiles wants to get a look at what’s going on in there, but the light is bright and he squints away from it, frowning. “So, I’m betting you need to sleep more,” he calls, and Stiles nods silently. Definitely. “And I have to go in for a bit of work. But,” he’s out of the closet with a pair of nice shoes, sitting down on the edge of the bed with his back to Stiles as he fits them onto his feet. “I would really, really like it if you hung around here and waited for me.”

Stiles blinks at his back, a little surprised. Really? After he made a complete drunken ass of himself in the nicest place in Beacon Hills where dozens of people saw it, Derek really wants Stiles to hang around here and wait for Derek to get back? “Uh…”

“You can shower, and there’s plenty of food, and the maid won’t bother you.”

“The maid,” Stiles repeats, tonelessly.

Derek finishes putting on his shoes, then turns and faces Stiles head on, reaching his hand out as if he wants to touch him. Stiles allows it, so Derek strokes his cheek a couple of times and smiles gently at him, tracing his eyes over Stiles’ face. Stiles must look like a complete fucking mess, right now, but there Derek is, looking at him like that. “There’s a lot we didn’t get to do last night,” he says in a low voice, and Stiles swallows.

Yeah. He bets there is.

“Because you had to go and get messy on wine.”

“Ugh…” he palms his face again, knocking Derek’s hand away from him. “I’m embarrassed.”

“When you fucking pointed at Starry Starry Night and called it a Basquiat…” he laughs, entire face crinkling up with the motion. “Oh, my God.”

“It was Starry Starry Night?” Stiles is mystified. He was sure it was a Basquiat. “How fucking drunk was I?”

“Well,” Derek hums, shrugging his shoulders. “When we got back to my place you broke into my fridge and cracked a couple of eggs.”

“Oh. My God.” He pulls his hands away from his face and throws them up in the air, disgusted with himself. “And you still wanna hang out with me?”

Derek nods his head, completely sure. “There’s nothing I’d like more than to come home and find you here.”

Stiles licks his lips. He really needs more water. “Okay,” he agrees, a little skeptical still, and Derek smiles at him. “How long will you be gone?”

“Until around five.” He looks at the time on his phone, mutters a curse, and quickly stands from the bed. “I’ve gotta go, I’m already late. Shower’s yours, kitchen’s yours, bed’s yours. Just don’t get into the liquor cabinet.”

“Har, har,” Stiles mutters, but smiles all the same.

Derek picks up his keys and wallet from the bedside table and stuffs them into his pants, leaning over quickly just to run his fingers across Stiles’ face again. He’d probably kiss him, but God knows what’s going on in Stiles’ mouth right about now. “I’ll be back,” he promises, and then he walks out the room, closing the door behind him.

Stiles thumps back down into the bed and is asleep again within minutes.

When he wakes up, the sun is a bit higher, and he feels marginally better than before. He moseys into the bathroom Derek had come out of earlier and makes quick work of showering in the world’s best fucking shower, all big and huge and thinks of the possibilities of Derek fucking him in there. He meanders with a towel around his waist to Derek’s closet, flicks on the light, and stares.

The man likes clothes. He’s got miles of pants and dress shirts, t-shirts and jeans and shoes and belts and fucking cuff links, for God’s sake. This is absurd. He waddles over to what looks like a dresser and pulls open the top drawer. Boxer briefs. Of course. Then, the second drawer – blessedly, sweat pants.

He pulls out a soft gray pair and has to fold them over a couple of times, but they fit all cozy and nice, even as they hang low on his hips. He selects a plain white undershirt, and then he comes back out into the bedroom and blinks a bit, unsure what to do from here.

He pulls open the blinds to assess where exactly he is and half expects to see a big yard, a gate, a huge garden, and a pool or some shit. Instead, he looks out and sees a cityscape, mountains off in the distance – this is on top of a building. He looks around out the window, mouth hanging open, and realizes he’s in a fucking penthouse.

Holy shit. He whips around, skirts past the king sized bed again, and pokes his head out into the hallway. It’s nice. Tiled floors, long hall with art on the walls, a big window at the end. He tip toes out towards the living room, sees a big television and some comfortable looking couches, and then peeks into the kitchen.

“Oh, man,” he half moans, stepping his bare feet on the cold tiles as the carpet ends. It’s sleek as shit. Like, modern kitchen from some soccer mom’s wet fucking dreams. He sees a coffee maker and attacks it, puttering around in the nearby cabinets for some grounds. He makes a pot, leaning back on against the island as he waits for it to finish brewing.

Then, he opens up the fridge. He does not remember being inside this thing last night, but any evidence of cracked eggs is long fucking gone. He wonders if Derek had taken care of that, or if the mysterious maid he’d mentioned before had a hand in it.

His pot of coffee finishes, and he finds himself a nice big red mug from among the glasses to pour some into. He dresses it up with some whole milk and sugar, sips at it, and instantly starts to feel his hangover disappear into the back of his mind. As he stands there sipping and sipping, his eyes catch something in the corner of the room and he pulls his mug away from his face, a grin splitting across his face.

“There’s a breakfast nook,” he shouts at nobody and nothing, scurrying across the floor to plop himself right down on the cushioned seat. There’s a window with a checkered curtain, so Stiles pushes it aside to find another view – this one of a cliff run off, disappearing down into streets and buildings. At night, it must be such a pretty fucking view.

This is the daddyest apartment of all fucking time. Stiles thinks he’s died and gone to heaven.

He calls Scott some time later, lounging across one of the couches in the living room and sinking deep into the cushions. “Dude,” Scott says the second he answers.

“Dude,” Stiles says back, a grin splitting his face. “He took me to The Silver Snake in his fucking fancy ass limousine.”

“Shit!”

“And then, get this. I get fucking abducted drunk on wine,”

“Of course.”

“…and he takes me home, doesn’t put his fucking hands on me at all, and now I’m here in his god damn penthouse in that building at the edge of town with the terraces, and he still wants to see me. Dude.”

“Holy shit,” Scott intones from the other line, and then he huffs something that might be laughter. “Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. But he’s fucking daddying the shit out of me.”

“You’re in his penthouse?”

“Yeah. He was like, I have to go do business or some shit, and he asked me to stay here and wait for him.”

“Fuuckkk. Does he have a private gym or what?”

“I haven’t explored the entire place, yet,” he admits, because he’s honestly just been obsessed with the kitchen ever since he found it. “But I would not be surprised.”

“And he’s not weird or anything?” Scott clarifies. “Like, he hasn’t asked to piss on you.”

“Knock on wood,” Stiles mutters, because sitting here in soft clothes and a sexy as fuck penthouse after being treated to the kind of meal he was last night while sitting across from a man that good looking…he just really has to wonder.

He’s gotta be into something weird. His kink profile was tame for the most part, that Stiles can remember, but he’s gotta be hiding something. Some hidden, hella weird kink. Right?

“Well, god damn. This is turning out better than I expected! When we set up that profile I thought, like, maybe a hook up. At best.”

“I expected less than that,” Stiles says, biting on his thumb. “I expected to make fun of it the entire time.”

“Now, here we are.”

Stiles smiles to himself, curling his knees up to his chest. “Now, here we are.” It’s almost unbelievable.

Stiles eats a bowl of cereal and a yogurt cup, cleans up after himself ten times better than he would in his own place just because the entire thing is so immaculate it’d feel like desecration to leave a fucking milk spot on the marble counter. Then, he flicks around on Netflix. He finds a pack of cigarettes in Derek’s bedroom and steps out onto the terrace to smoke it, gazing out across the view while sipping on a coke.

It’s not until around five fifteen that there’s a click at the door, like a swipe card being read, and Derek is walking in. Now that Stiles isn’t half asleep and his hangover is mostly cured from time and time alone, he gets a real nice long look at what Derek is actually wearing.

He’s got on a mint green button down, the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the top two buttons undone, a pair of khaki pants, and an undone tie. Stiles looks at him as he approaches, mouth hanging open, and says, “you look daddyish as shit right now.”

Derek looks down at himself and comes to a stop about five feet away from where Stiles has camped himself on the couch, an incredulous smile on his face. “If that’s what you’re into.”

“You know what I’m into,” he rolls his eyes, and Derek tips his head in agreement. “Your place is really nice.”

Derek leans down to peck Stiles on the lips, which Stiles accepts hungrily, and keeps his face close as he asks, “what’d you do all day?”

Stiles shrugs. “Mostly just recovered. Shower, cigarettes, cereal.”

“Ah,” Derek says, and then he stands up all the way and puts his hands in his pockets. “Are you hungry right now?”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “Not really.”

Derek stares at him. “Those are my sweatpants.”

“Oh, yeah,” he looks down at himself. “I figured you’d let me borrow.”

“You can absolutely borrow.” He stares some more. “They look good on you. You can keep.”

“Aw, thanks.” He has this itch, in the back of his throat, to finally come out and just drop the d word, but he doesn’t know if they’re quite there yet. They stare at each other some more, that same electric charge still between them lighting Stiles’ fucking skin on fire, and then Derek is the first to speak.

“Come on. I’ve got something for you.”

He starts walking towards the bedroom. All right, Stiles thinks as he watches him for just a moment before standing up. Derek just wants to get right the fuck to it. And honestly, Stiles doesn’t blame him. He remembers pretty vividly being a huge, gigantic tease the entire night even before he was fucking drunk trying to push Derek’s hand into his pants. The guy must have been blueballed to all oblivion, and he’s a gentleman, so he won’t mention it.

But, man, oh man. Stiles really thinks he’s about to get it.

He follows. It’s not like he has much of a choice, anyway.

Derek pats the bed for Stiles to sit on the edge of it, and he does, folding his hands in his lap and waiting expectantly. He watches Derek get down on his knees next to the bed, reach underneath, and come out the other side with a sleek black box tied with a satin red ribbon.

“Presents,” Stiles’ eyebrows raise, and Derek nods his head, standing back up to his full height. He sets the box down on Stiles’ lap, and instead of sitting down next to him, Derek stands right in front of him, all tall and big, with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks a little menacing, like that, but Stiles bites his lip and hovers his hands over the ribbon, flicking his eyes up for permission to open.

“Go on,” Derek says, and Stiles doesn’t have to be told twice.

He pulls the ribbon off and tosses it aside, gently lifts the top off the box and tosses that to the side as well, and comes face to face with white tissue paper. He paws through it a bit, separating it until it parts open to reveal a sea of red. Blood red, at that.

Stiles grins at what he sees, lifting his eyes up again to meet Derek’s. “Red lacies,” he says, and shakes his head in delight as he pulls them up out of the box to hold in the air and get a good look at. They’re a bit simple, just red lace in a common shape and style, but when he turns over to the back, he finds a variant. The elastic band goes across the back just like in the front, but has a bow right in the middle, where the lace vanishes into a v. When Stiles has these on, they’ll likely show off half his ass in a heart shape.

“Do you like them?” Derek asks – demands, more like. As if he’s desperate to hear the answer.

Stiles nods, enthusiastic. “I do. Thank you,” he curls his fingers around them a little lovingly, feeling the softness of the fabric underneath his own skin.

“There’s more,” Derek says, and Stiles raises his eyebrows. He sets the lace down next to him and pushes an excess of the tissue aside, finding more red for his troubles. “I know we didn’t explicitly talk about it, and you said you don’t really like to dress like a girl, but…”

“Oh, I see,” Stiles says around a laugh, pulling a pair of long red thigh high stockings out from the box. There are matching bows to the underwear on these as well, right at the top, and Stiles runs his fingers along them gently.

“Is that okay?” Derek asks. “If not, we can return them.”

“I meant that skirts and dresses and bras weren’t okay,” he explains, caressing his gift. “Thigh highs are just fine.”

Stiles gathers both of his presents into his lap and then sets the box off to the side, so it rustles with all the tissue paper, curling them around his hands and feeling giddy. No man has ever bought him underwear before. Let alone underwear he actually likes. He hugs them a bit and looks up at Derek, who’s still just standing there staring at him, eyes dark in his head. Stiles bites his lip and look down at the red, before looking back up and meeting Derek’s directly.

There’s no doubt between them where this is gonna go. The question is, who’s going to initiate it?

And then of course, it’s Derek.

“Now,” he starts, reaching out to push some of Stiles’ hair away from his forehead. “You go into the bathroom and put those on. Nothing else.”

Heat pools in Stiles’ stomach. He’s really going to do this. They’re really going to do this. He stands on legs like jelly, nodding his head in deference and scooting himself over to the bathroom. Derek watches him the entire time, his eyes like lasers into the back of Stiles’ neck, and by the time Stiles has got the door closed behind him he feels breathless and like he’s going to pass out, or something.

But he won’t. He strips himself of the pants and shirt, slides himself into the panties easily. He’s put on thousands of pairs just like it before, so that’s not hard. The stockings, he struggles a bit with. He sits on the edge of Derek’s bath tub and shoves his foot into one, clumsily dragging them up his leg. Then, he spends an ordinate amount of time screwing around so the bow sits where he wants it to, before moving onto the next one. Up it goes, more fiddling with the bow, and then he’s as dressed as he’s likely going to be at any point tonight.

He stands, walking over to the big mirror over the sink. He turns around and looks at how the underwear looks on his ass, is pleased, and then stands facing forward, taking in the whole picture.

Derek has a bizarre eye for sizes. And also, a bizarre eye for ladies’ lingerie. Holy shit, he looks sexy as fuck. He runs his hands down his bare chest and turns to the side, biting his lip and imagining that Derek is sitting out there, waiting expectantly and patiently to see Stiles in his new outfit, just for him.

He sucks in a deep breath and leans over the sink, gripping the edge of the counter and staring at himself dead in the eyes. He tries to be serious, for a second, but then his lips keep curling up. He can’t fucking believe this is happening to him. He cannot believe he’s actually found a dude willing to buy him shit and fuck him senseless all dirty and take him out to nice places. This just doesn’t happen to people, especially not people like Stiles. This is fantasy.

He leers at himself one last time in the mirror, and then he breathes in and out once, before opening up the bathroom door and stepping back out into the carpeted master bedroom.

Derek has drawn the curtains shut again to keep out the fading sunlight. He’s also dimmed the overhead light, setting the entire room in a sort of dusky look that casts both of them in a bit of shadow. And Derek is sitting there on the edge of the bed, his face dark, one ankle propped up on the opposite leg, waiting.

When Stiles emerges in full, Derek shifts a bit, angling his body more toward Stiles and dropping his leg down onto the ground with a thump. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, and opens his arms up in an invitation for Stiles to come. “Come here.”

Stiles does. He comes and stands right in front of Derek, shamelessly, with his hands at his sides to cover absolutely nothing up. He’s exposed, and dirty, and completely fucking brazen, and Derek seems to like it. He seems to like it quite a bit.

Derek puts his hands on Stiles’ hips and pulls him in a little closer, looking up at him through hooded lashes and letting a smile inch across his face. “You look so pretty,” he says, and Stiles nods.

“I know,” he agrees, and Derek doesn’t look surprised by Stiles’ mouthiness – not at all.

“You like your presents?”

“I do. I’d like them even more if they were on the floor right now, but –“

Derek grabs him by his hips again, harder, and stands up off the bed. He manhandles Stiles a bit away, so Stiles gasps and nearly trips over his own feet, while Derek grips Stiles and sets him up at the edge of the bed. Derek pushes him until he falls back on top of it, legs spreading open of their own accord, red and long and sexy.

In the blink of an eye, Derek is on top of him. He straddles Stiles’ hips at first, arranging Stiles so his head is on the pillow and his body stretches out the length of the bed. “I’m going to tie you,” Derek says, taking both of Stiles’ wrists in his hands as he does. He clasps them easily in one big hand, reaching somewhere over Stiles’ head to grab at what has to be rope. And is rope. Red bondage rope. “And we’re going to take it nice and easy.”

Stiles bites his lip, tilting his head all the way back to watch as Derek ties his wrists together around the iron frame of his bed. “Are you going to fuck me?” Stiles asks, hitching his legs up a bit.

Derek finishes up the knot with a tight pull, and just like that, Stiles is bound up. “Yes,” he says, testing the give and take of the rope. “This is okay? Too tight?”

He shakes his head. “Just right.”

With a long exhale, Derek runs his fingers down each of Stiles’ arms, gentle like a feather, and it tickles, so Stiles shivers. He leans down and kisses Stiles full on the mouth, the smacking of their lips together the only sound in the room. He guesses Derek doesn’t have a sexytimes playlist – which, honestly, is fine by Stiles. He went out a couple of times with a dude who did. It was uncomfortable, and to say the very least, he can’t ever hear Rihanna without being reminded of it. Which is really unfortunate.

Derek climbs up off the top of Stiles and leaves him alone on the bed for a moment, tied and immobile, so all Stiles can do is spread his legs in a way he’s hoping is enticing. It has to be, but Derek rifles around somewhere next to the bed for a moment, still totally clothed and with no intentions it would seem of getting undressed anytime soon.

So it’s a long one. Stiles always likes the long ones.

He comes back up with a small handful of stuff and sets it all down on the bed right next to Stiles’ body, high enough up that Stiles can crane his neck to get a look at it. Derek gestures to all of it, raising his eyebrows. “Anything here uncomfortable for you?”

Stiles licks his lips. There’s a vibrator, which instantly has Stiles’ heartbeat ticking up in excitement and his dick jumping in his underwear, a bottle of lube, a cock sleeve, and a gag. He looks up to Derek’s eyes, smirks, and says, “I don’t do gags.”

“Of course you don’t,” Derek huffs a laugh, tossing the gag off the side of the bed and leaving only the rest behind. “You’re not really you if you’re not running your mouth.”

“I don’t so much run my mouth in bed,” he winks, wiggling a bit in his place. “I mostly just like to let people know what I like.”

Derek doesn’t straddle Stiles’ hips when he gets back on the bed, this time. Instead, he comes up from the bottom, fitting himself in between Stiles’ wide open stockinged legs. He kneels there, taking hold of one of the bows on Stiles’ thigh and playing with it, tracing his eyes up and down Stiles’ body. The permission to look is no longer something that needs to be granted to him – not in this situation. There are other places where Stiles gets to control what Derek sees and what he doesn’t, but here?

This is all Derek’s domain. And the permission to look and to touch are given without asking.

“You look so pretty,” he says again, putting his hands on either side of Stiles’ head to lean over him, brushing his lips feather light against Stiles’. Stiles tries to chase it, to deepen the kiss himself, but Derek pulls back just enough that Stiles can’t reach. “I’m going to have you screaming my name,” he murmurs, casual almost, and the words send a shiver up and down Stiles’ spine. “I’m going to play with you until you’re seeing stars. Take you apart, while you’re completely helpless to do anything about it. And I’m going to make you cry. I like when boys cry.”

Stiles swallows, and it sounds loud in his ears. He’s so hard at this point it almost hurts, and Derek has to know that. But his hand hasn’t come anywhere near Stiles’ crotch yet. Not even close.

“And just when you think you can’t take it anymore, I’m going to fuck you and make you come untouched all over yourself, and you’re going to say thank you.” He drags his lips up Stiles’ neck, and then his tongue, pulling his mouth right up against Stiles’ ear to whisper nice and harsh, right there. “Any questions?”

Stiles is shaking a bit, the fingers he can move twisting and untwisting in the ropes. He swallows again, clears his throat. “No,” he says.

Derek pulls his head up, all the way, looking Stiles right in his eyes. He’s got this smile on his face – this almost cruel, almost not at all, smile. He says, “no, what?”

And there it is. Stiles breathes out a sigh, relief and embarrassment and something else he doesn’t have a name for all in one – because Derek is finally going to make him say it. It feels nice to let the pressure of saying it for the first time himself go, to have it pulled out of him as if on a string by Derek, so he doesn’t have the weight of the word weighing his tongue down anymore. He says, “no, daddy,” and Derek kisses him again.

When he finishes, he says, “good boy.”

***

“Let’s start with this,” Derek says, tapping his finger gently on the head of Stiles’ cock, sticking out from the elastic of the underwear. Just the very head, the rest tucked away safely in the lace, and Stiles jerks a bit. It’s only the beginning. Something tells him that when Derek promises to take someone apart, he fucking means it.  
And in the slowest, most torturous way possible. After all, this is the first time. More likely than not, he wants to give Stiles some idea of what to expect.

Derek picks the vibrator up, wields it sort of like it’s a weapon, and puts his hand on the inside of Stiles’ thigh. “No means…?”

Stiles is confused for a second, but then he quickly huffs and says, “no means no. Yes means yes.”

“If I do anything that makes you even slightly uncomfortable, I want to hear a strong, clear no.”

“Yes, daddy.”

Satisfied that they’re both on the same page, Derek turns the vibe on to its lowest setting, letting it run for a moment as he appraises Stiles’ cock in his underwear. He presses the palm of his other hand against Stiles’ trapped balls, and leans over him a bit, pressing the vibrator right against the head of Stiles’ cock.

Stiles whimpers, spreading his legs nice and wide.

“It’s like your little clit,” he says, and Stiles meets his eyes. Derek raises his eyebrows, and Stiles says nothing, and it keeps going. He runs the vibrator all around and around Stiles’ head, before dragging it slow and steady over the length of Stiles’ erection in the underwear. The vibrations on the lace feel out of this world, and Stiles tries to hitch himself up into it harder, faster, but Derek holds him steady by his balls, keeping him locked in place.

Derek jumps the vibrator up to medium, pressing it against his cockhead again, and Stiles pulls on his restraints a bit. “Tell me that feels good,” Derek demands, cupping Stiles’ balls in a bit of a vice.

“It feels good,” he breathes, and Derek drags it up and down his length again. With the stronger vibrations, the lace feels even better rubbing that friction on him, and he goes a little cross eyed.

“Tell me it feels good on your clit.”

Stiles’ cheeks flush. The vibrator is back on his head, rolling through the precome, and it makes it hard for him to think straight. It comes tumbling out of his mouth, the hot shame bubbling up in accompaniment with the pleasure, making the entire thing feel sort of surreal. “It feels good on my clit.”

“Good boy,” Derek says like he means it, and Stiles about melts underneath the praise. It only gets worse when Derek aggressively runs the vibe up and down his shaft with the lace, again and again, and Stiles squirms. He squeaks, almost kicking his legs out from how good it feels, how close he is, his eyes rolling back into his head –

Then, Derek snatches Stiles balls extra hard, and he doesn’t come. Just like that.

The vibrator is off for a second, and Derek is just gripping Stiles’ balls, and Stiles is shaking and shuddering and just not coming. He was this close.

He doesn’t know if anyone’s ever brought him that close to the edge before. It was like a gentle death, Stiles swears to fucking god.

“Perfect,” Derek purrs, patting Stiles on the inside of his thigh like he did a good job, or something. The reality is, it’s completely out of Stiles’ hands. He couldn’t have come if he had wanted to, not with Derek doing that shit to his balls.

“Ah, fuck,” Stiles says, biting his lip and tugging himself up on his restraints. “Oh, my God…”

“Works a bit better when someone else does it to you as opposed to just yourself, right?” Derek asks, a kind smile on his face. He strokes Stiles’ leg affectionately, and Stiles nods his head.

“I fucking guess, holy shit.”

Slowly, Derek releases Stiles’ full balls, cocking his head to the side as he observes the entire scene in front of him. “Everything all right up there?” He asks.

“Uh,” Stiles clears his throat, and even just the hesitation has Derek’s eyes flashing with concern. “It’s all yes up here.”

“Perfect,” Derek says again, and then flashes Stiles one of those smiles again. “This is only just starting. You know that right?”

“Oh, I know,” he squirms a little, grinning even with his hands tied, even at Derek’s complete and total mercy. “Daddy me. Control me. I want it.”

“You got it,” Derek says, voice dangerous.

***

“You gotta stay still,” Derek’s voice is just South of taunting, leaning back and watching while Stiles struggles and shakes and shudders.  
“I’m – trying,” he hisses, and his abs fucking hurt. “God, oh my God –“

Derek strokes his inner thigh, cocking his head to the side as he strokes his eyes up and down the scene in front of him. Derek’s got the vibrator set up so it’s sitting hands free on Stiles’ chest, the head of it pointed right on Stiles’ cockhead. If he shifts at all, it rolls away and the pleasure is gone, all hopes of coming diminished, and Derek clucks his tongue and says try better next time, before it starts all over again.

Derek has zero percent of a plan of letting Stiles come. He knows that. Not from this. He told Stiles point fucking blank that neither he nor Stiles were going to be coming until the end of the night, when Derek fucks him and he comes untouched. That’s it, plain and simple.

Yet, Stiles can’t help himself. He’s trying so hard.

“I’m close,” he says, screwing his eyes shut. The amount of time it takes to get close from just cockhead stimulation from a fucking vibrator is un god damn heard of – Stiles is sure it’s been forty-five minutes. He’s sweating. He’s thirsty. He can’t fucking do this. “I’m so close, I’m close –“ and he makes a fatal mistake.

He tries to hitch his back up, arching it into the pleasure mindlessly – and there it goes. The vibrator rolls away, just when he was milliseconds away from coming, and Stiles’ body locks up.

He cries, just a little bit. It’s just so frustrating, and he’s so hard, and Derek is doing nothing, absolutely nothing to help him, and looks amused about it. A single tear rolls down his cheek and his chin wobbles, and Derek shuts the vibrator off from where it had been pleasuring the bed sheet.

Derek leans up and strokes the tear off of Stiles’ face with a gentle finger, benign and calm. “It’s okay,” he says, in a soothing hush. “Shh, it’s fine. You can cry, sweetheart. Go on and have a nice good cry before we start the next one, get it all out.”

“The next one,” Stiles huffs, sniffling a bit and tugging on his ropes. His wrists hurt, but in a good way, as far as he’s concerned. “Daddy…”

“One more time, I promise. Just one more,” he holds up his two fingers and then crosses them, like he’s swearing. “If you can make it through one more, then you’re going to be such a good boy, and you’re going to come so well and daddy is going to be really, really proud.”

Stiles bites his lip and knows that he wants it. He’s crazy for it. He wants to be brought to the edge so close, so fucking hard, that he sees stars and cries more and gets frustrated, and Derek strokes him and praises him, and he wants to make it to the fucking. He wants Derek to fuck his orgasm clean out of him, wants to be all full with him.

He wants Derek saying he’s been such a good boy. He wants more.

“All right. Let’s get these off,” he tugs on the elastic of the underwear, dragging them down Stiles’ thighs and calves until he’s got them down at the ankles. He pulls them off, setting them gently to the side. “We don’t want to ruin those, do we? You look really nice in them.”

Stiles nods, a bit mindless. Of course he looks good in them.

Derek leans over to the bedside table, so his shirt rustles against Stiles’ bare skin and reminds him that Derek is still fully fucking clothed while Stiles is here looking all tousled and sex ruined, completely bared with his red and aching hard cock on display.

He produces a water bottle, unscrewing the cap with a flourish of his wrist. Gently, he fits his hand between the back of Stiles’ head and the pillow, pushing just enough to lift Stiles’ head up a bit. He presses the lip of the bottle to Stiles’ mouth and without being told to do so, Stiles drinks greedily. He’s so fucking thirsty, it’s insane.

After he’s downed half the bottle, Derek pulls it away and wipes the residual drops away from his lips with his thumb with a certain type of reverence. He strokes Stiles’ cheek and his jawline and his neck, and it seems absurd to Stiles that Derek can be so gentle and so severe at the same time.

“Okay,” he says, setting the bottle aside and leaning back to fit himself in between Stiles’ open legs again. “You ready for the next one?”

Stiles sniffles again, but he nods his head all the same. He’s in this, now.

***

Stiles’ dick squelches in the grossest fucking way every time Derek gives him a pass with the sleeve – there’s so much lube on his dick from the half a dozen times Derek has reapplied it, it’s a wonder the entire thing doesn’t just slip right off his body, smooth and easy like butter. It’s gross and it sounds it, but Stiles can’t think about that right now.  
His body is hot. It’s on fire. Every inch of him, even the parts of him that Derek isn’t touching, hasn’t touched yet, burning. His arms ache from being restrained and his wrists itch from the ropes and his legs have been held open for so long he thinks they’re going to fall off, but he can’t move.

All he can do is push his body up to meet Derek’s hand, thrust up into the sleeve even though it hurts when he does it, and pant. Derek’s free hand is placed loosely on his inner thigh, or on his chest, or on his balls, or all three at once, it feels like. It’s mind-numbing.

“’m so close,” he says through a half-sob, as the sleeve squelches again and Stiles’ cockhead pops out the top. A bit of precome dribbles out and Stiles isn’t ashamed of it, watching it just like Derek does, only with different eyes, he’s sure. Derek watches it like he’s got the show of his life right in front of him, while Stiles watches it like he’s being forced to. “Derek, please, I’m this close – I’m this close –“

“Not that close,” Derek counters, and quickens his pace a bit. Stiles whimpers and shudders, eyes rolling back in his head. And he almost tastes it – release. He can feel it building up inside of him, pushing at the embers of the fire and throwing gasoline on the flames, and he chases after it with his body, arching up and letting his mouth drop open…

And then the sleeve is off of him, Derek holding his hand up in the air as he quickly stops the orgasm before it can even start, and Stiles sobs. Full body, loud whimpering noise, big fat tears down his cheeks, sobs.

He presses his face into the crook of his arm and cries for a moment, while Derek hovers over him and watches for a moment, seeming transfixed. Jesus, he really does like it when Stiles cries. Stiles doesn’t know if he’s disturbed or turned on by that, at the moment, which isn’t a surprise. There are so many emotions and endorphins pumping through his veins that he’d be surprised if he could make heads or tails of his own thoughts.

“Okay,” Derek says, gentle like he’s talking to a spooked animal. “It’s all right. God, look at you.”

Stiles pulls his face out of his arm and looks Derek right in the eyes, through tears and even as his chin wobbles. Derek reaches out to cup his face with both hands, stroking the tears away with his thumbs and smiling. “If you don’t fuck me in ten seconds,” Stiles says, voice a little raw, “I’m going to kick you in the dick.”

“Okay, okay,” Derek huffs a laugh, taking his hands off of Stiles’ face and patting him on the chest. “You did it. I’m so proud of you, baby.”

“Shut. The. Hell. Up,” Stiles hisses through grit teeth, tugging so hard on his ropes that he thinks he makes himself bleed a little bit, but it’s like he can barely feel it. “Fuck me, fuck me, I’m so ready, holy shit…”

“All right,” Derek holds his hands up as if he’s placating Stiles, undoing the button on his pants and pulling down on the zipper. Before he takes them off, he pulls a condom out of his back pocket and deposits it on the bed next to him, and Stiles zeros in on it the way a lion spots a zebra out in the wilds.

The pants come off, and then his shirt, and Stiles watches all this happen like he’s seeing it through a film. He keeps shifting around, almost desperately and altogether way too mindlessly, thrusting up at nothing in the air and biting his lip and slipping in his stockinged feet on the smooth sheets. “Calm down,” Derek says, and Stiles nearly really does kick him if only just to say he did it.

“Easy for you to fucking say. You’re not the one tied up with an erection the size of Canada.”

“Hey,” Derek chides, even with a smile on his face, “I’ve been holding out, too. I’ve been –“

“If you don’t get inside me in five seconds –“

“You know, you’re really not making a great case for not getting gagged,” Derek teases, rolling the condom up on his dick and then slicking it up as an afterthought almost.

Stiles starts crying again, just because he can. He kicks his feet like a petulant little kid and cries, all while Derek starts saying something about getting Stiles opened up and being careful and this that and the other thing, and Stiles just doesn’t…care. God he just doesn’t care. “Just do it,” he says, spreading his legs wider. “Just do it, just do it, just –“

“Just let me open you up,” Derek says, poking his fingers at Stiles’ entrance with a note of curiosity. A single finger slides in and it’s not enough, not even close.

“No, just do it. I can take it, come on.”

“Stiles –“

“Daddy, please.”

That, for whatever reason, is all the incentive Derek ends up needing. He hitches Stiles’ legs up, pushing them back at the knee so they’re all bent and aching and Stiles doesn’t care, and then slots his arms in such a way that his hands are pressing into the bed right near Stiles’ neck. One of them comes back up to align his cock with Stiles’ entrance, and then, with a hard push, Derek is inside of him.

Stiles locks up on a harsh moan, and then, quietly, “ow,” which must be made all the more convincing by the fact that he still has tears in his eyes from earlier.

Derek freezes. “Stop?” He asks, and Stiles shakes his head fervently, biting his lip.

“No,” he says, and when Derek stays frozen still, he realizes his mistake. “I mean, yes. I mean – no, don’t stop, yes, keep going.”

Derek is hesitant, but he gently starts moving. He pushes in and out, in and out, just two slow and easy times, and Stiles’ breath hitches and it burns. It hurts, because yeah there’s lube, and yeah Derek’s got on an incredibly slick condom, but Jesus Christ. He’s not open at all. Stiles can’t help the tiny little noise of pain that escapes him on the third thrust, and then Derek is stopped again.

“It’s hurting you,” he says, matter-of-fact, giving Stiles this all-serious look. It’s bizarre that Derek can look at him like that while he’s balls deep inside of him, but then, it’s not that bizarre. It’s just Derek.

“Just for a minute,” he breathes, panting and holding his fingers so tight against his ropes he’s losing blood circulation up there. “Just keep going, it’ll feel good, in just a minute…please.”

Derek licks his lips, and quickly looks down at where he and Stiles are joined. It’s almost like he’s checking to see if there’s any blood or evident signs of hurt, there, but there can’t be, because it just doesn’t hurt that bad. Then, he looks back up, and leans over Stiles again. Without another word, and with this look in his eyes that Stiles doesn’t have a word for, he just starts fucking him.

Stiles’ hurt noises come back even as he tries to strangle them down, but he never says no, and he never says stop, and Derek keeps it as gentle as he can. He goes slow and steady, swallowing down Stiles’ small hurts with quick kisses, until finally, Stiles is opened up, and it feels – so – good. So fucking good that Stiles can’t hardly move.

He lies there, head tilted back, eyes screwed shut, and Derek starts going faster, and faster. It’s around only the fifth time Derek nails Stiles’ prostate that he’s coming so fucking hard he blacks out. Or, almost does. Mostly he just loses control of his bodily functions and whatever sounds he’s making and just lets the pleasure do everything for him. It screams Derek’s name and shudders and whimpers and comes all across his chest in spurts and drowns him, almost.

He has not come that well in years. Honestly, if ever. It’s so hard that even as he’s coming down from it he’s just panting, these long drawn out things that are laced with tiny little whimpers. It’s like floating, for just a minute.

Derek comes not soon after, pulling out and tossing the condom aside before doing anything else. He lets Stiles’ legs drop down and straighten out all the way, for the first time in so long it almost hurts to do so, and Stiles sighs in relief. So much fucking relief.

Derek’s face is right in his, a lascivious and satisfied grin on his face. He says, “what do we say?”

Stiles licks his lips, and says, breathlessly, “thank you, daddy.”

“Good boy.” He kisses Stiles on the lips, and then again, the sound loud in Stiles’ ears. “Such a good boy.” They kiss so much they half melt into one another, even as Derek undoes the knot holding Stiles’ arms up. Even as Derek takes each arm and rubs it, up and down, like getting the circulation back into them and soothing the aches out of them, they don’t pull their mouths apart.

Until Derek takes the time to kiss at Stiles’ red and raw wrists, bandaging up the hurt with affection. Stiles lies there like a rag doll, completely useless to do anything except kiss back lazily when Derek brings his mouth back up to his. It goes on for so long Stiles doesn’t realize it when they switch positions, and by the time he does, he finds them locked up in each other’s arms, on their sides.

They pull apart, finally, and Stiles ducks his head underneath Derek’s chin. Derek offers him a kiss to his head and then just strokes his hair, sighing in what might be contentment. “Did you have a good time?” He asks, and Stiles is so close he feels his voice better than he hears it.

“Yes,” he admits, because holy hell, did he fucking ever.

“Anything you want to tell me to fuck off about and never do again?”

Stiles thinks about that for a moment, going over everything in his head. “Not that I can think of. Except for maybe when you wouldn’t just fuck me.”

He expects a bit of a laugh in return, or maybe even a scoff and a rolling of the eyes, but instead, Derek pulls back so he can look Stiles right in his face, and he looks very fucking serious. More serious than he thinks the situation warrants, but there he is, with the face. “I’m always going to check with you,” he says, sincere, and Stiles lowers his eyes and tries to nuzzle back into his neck again. “When you make sounds like you’re being hurt, that doesn’t really get me going. If pain play isn’t your thing, then it’s not my thing. You know that.”

“Interesting,” Stiles says, hiding in Derek’s chest. “For a guy who likes seeing me cry so much.”

Derek sighs. “There are good tears and bad tears. I’ve learned the difference.”

And Derek is right about that. Stiles just cried because he was so turned on and so frustrated, and yeah his dick ached a little bit and every time he was denied an orgasm it felt like the end of the fucking world, but he wasn’t being put through physical pain. Derek was just playing with him and teasing him and taking him to the edge, and Stiles cried because it was just so…intense.

Not because Derek was hurting him. There is a difference.

“My point is, if you say something like ow, I’m going to stop. That’s that.”

“Okay,” Stiles mutters, not seeing any way out of this conversation other than just submitting to what Derek says. Chances are, Stiles could argue it all he wants – next time Stiles makes that same hurt sound during sex, Derek will stop and ask if he’s okay.

They sit in quiet for a moment, nothing but Derek stroking up and down Stiles’ bare back. They’re still in their own mess a bit, Stiles’ underwear sitting on the edge of the bed and the bottle of lube sitting open somewhere in the sheets and potentially ruining them, but neither of them seem to care all that much.

Then, Stiles says, “I’m so fucking hungry,” and Derek sits up, taking Stiles along with him.

“I’ll order a pizza,” he puts his bare feet down on the carpet, and Stiles blinks out after him as he putters around in his closet for pants and a shirt. He has the presence of mind to look at the clock and see that it’s not even nine o’clock, which shocks him. It feels like it should be two o’clock in the fucking morning, for all that they’ve done together.

Derek pulls sweatpants on and nothing else, his bare chest glorious and tan and sexy in the dim lighting. “I want Chinese,” Stiles says, and Derek purses his lips but abides to Stiles’ wishes all the same. He turns to go fish out the take-out menu, and Stiles calls out after him. “Chicken fried rice. Lo mein,” Derek is out the door, down the hallway. “Spring rolls!”

***

Stiles barely breathes as he inhales his food, eating straight out of the container. Derek had set out nice plates and forks, napkins underneath, at the breakfast nook, and is himself eating off of a plate with little piles of everything laid out for him to pick at with his fork.  
But Stiles just grabbed the first container of rice he saw, fished out the shitty wooden chopsticks they provided, and gone to town. He hiccups a bit, nearly choking on his mouthful, and takes a long sip of wine to overtake it. “Oh man,” he says, reaching for the noodles after setting the rice down and taking another sip of his drink. “Isn’t it crazy how hungry sex can make you?”

Derek chews and swallows his food, raking his fork through a bed of rice on his plate. “I once ate an entire rotisserie chicken by myself after masturbating.”

This time, Stiles chokes on his food from laughter. He nearly takes an entire broccoli tree down his throat in one go, hacking and coughing and laughing though the entire thing. Derek just sits there with red in his cheeks, smiling down at his food and then at Stiles. He pokes around in his food some more, licks his lips, and says, “I like the way you laugh.”

Stiles captures a big pile of noodles with his chopsticks, holding it up in the air high so the longest noodle hangs down low enough for him to snap at with his teeth. “I like the way you make me laugh,” he counters before chowing down.

They eat and drink, and Stiles looks out the window and notes that the view at night is just as pretty as he imagined it would be – the city all lit up and there for them to look at. Stiles stares out and feels his knee bump up against Derek’s again and again under the table and feels genuinely…happy. For the first time in what may be a while.

It’s perfect timing for Derek to set his fork down and run his napkin over his mouth, sitting up straighter as if he’s gearing himself up to say something that scares him. “I had a really good time with you. In all respects. Talking and sex and hanging out.”

“Same,” Stiles agrees, dropping a lump of chicken into his mouth and chewing.

Derek clears his throat and gestures, so Stiles follows the pointless drag of his hand. “I’d like to keep seeing you. If you feel the same.”

“Oh, totally,” Stiles doesn’t even have to think about it. There’s no thought process that needs to be had. The guy is fucking hot, and he’s funny, and rich, and good in bed like wow, and he hits all of Stiles’ buttons. Extra fucking hard, at that. “Let’s date.”

“Okay,” Derek looks relieved out of his mind, which is charming and endearing and all kinds of cute for a dude that big, so Stiles just smiles at him and keeps on eating. “I’d like it if you stayed the night tonight, but I’m betting you have things to do tomorrow.”

Stiles nods his head. Unfortunately, yes, he does. “Dinner with dad, laundry day, house cleaning day.”

Derek goes back to playing with his food a bit, upper lip curling like what he’s about to say is very, very unsavory to him. “Unfortunately, during the week I’m indisposed. Work is – hectic, most of the time, and I can’t ever get away until late in the night.”

Sipping his wine, Stiles says, “you must be high up.” He’s begging Derek in his head to say the word CEO and make all of his fantasies completely and totally a reality, but Derek just smiles and shrugs.

“Pretty up there. Point being, I think we’ll be limited to only seeing each other on the weekends. I think our schedules clash during the week.”

Stiles hems that over in his head. That’s not too big of a deal, all things considered. They did pretty well at just texting each other at the start anyway, and they still have three days a week. Which is more than he can say for some other people’s relationships.

“And ideally, I’d like it if you came and stayed at my place from Friday night to Sunday morning.”

It’s not that hard of a thing to agree to. He thinks about getting to have sex with Derek in that bed again, or on his couch, or in his shower, and he thinks about getting to eat in this little breakfast nook and drink coffee with him and smoke cigarettes with him off the terrace, and it just sounds so…nice. It sounds better than anything he could have come up with in his own head.

“Deal,” he says, and Derek grins at him like he’s just made some little boy very, very happy. “But that means you have to come and stay at mine sometimes, too. It’s the party pad.”

Derek makes a face, looking past Stiles’ head like he’s picturing it in his head. “Why am I imagining a living room with dirty laundry everywhere and a kitchen with a month’s worth of dishes in the sink?”

“Because you’re psychic,” he teases, because honestly, he’s really not that far off from the truth. Scott and Stiles are out of college, but it’s a fresh out of college. Some habits are very hard to break, Stiles has learned.

“I’ll come and stay,” he says, putting his fork down completely again. “I just – I’d like to see you as much as possible.”

Stiles doesn’t know what he’s done to make Derek like him so much; then, he knows he has to attribute at least some of it to the underwear. Because, of course. It couldn’t be anything else but the underwear.


	3. Safe Wordception.

Actual Daddy, 11:34 PM : I just saw a raccoon eating a hamburger out of a Burger King dumpster. Two paws and all.  
Actual Daddy, 11:35 PM : Reminded me of you  
Me, 11:47 PM : Uh, because I’m a dirty raccoon that eats out of dumpsters? Romance really is still alive and well  
Actual Daddy, 11:49 PM : I just meant it’s something you’d like to hear about.  
Me, 11:50 PM : You didn’t get a pic, did you?  
Actual Daddy, 11:51 PM : No picture, no.  
Me, 11:54 PM : Omfg…what’s the point of you  
Actual Daddy, 11:56 PM : My credit cards.  
Me, 11:57 PM : Ohhh right…I like you again.

***

Me, 6:45 AM : I think I got lace chafing on my dick.  
Actual Daddy, 7:04 AM : HA! What? You’re not serious.  
Me, 7:06 AM : No, I am!!  
Me, 7:07 AM : My dick is all irritated. It’s from the vibrator and the lace combo. It feels like a gentle rug burn, dude.  
Actual Daddy, 7:09 AM : If I were there I’d kiss it better.  
Me, 7:10 AM : That’s such a gross, dumb thing to say.  
Me, 7:10 AM : I’m turned on, tho.  
Me, 7:12 AM : Are you at work right now??  
Actual Daddy, 7:15 AM : I’m in transit. You?  
Me, 7:16 AM : Riding the train as we speak.  
Actual Daddy, 7:18 AM : At the risk of sounding like some kind of controlling freak, I don’t like that you ride that train around the city.  
Me, 7:20 AM : I’m used to it, believe me. Ever since my car croaked six months ago I’ve been saving for a new one, but times is tough!  
Me, 7:21 AM : That being said, I don’t know if one can truly ever get “used to” the masturbating degenerates of the back seats…  
Actual Daddy, 7:25 AM : Jesus Christ.  
Actual Daddy, 7:27 AM : Hey, do me a favor?  
Actual Daddy, 7:27 AM : Tell me what color you’ve got on today.  
Me, 7:30 AM : Orange. More of a peach, really.  
Actual Daddy, 7:32 AM : Fuck, I bet that looks good on your skin.  
Actual Daddy, 7:33 AM : Picture?  
Me, 7:35 AM : Hmmm…  
Me, 7:36 AM : Earn it (:  
***

Stiles and Scott have a pretty normal post-work routine during the week. Stiles gets off around five and comes home to an empty condo, starts cooking dinner or figuring out what to order, and then Scott comes in at just past six, undoing his tie and huffing like he had the worst day imaginable.  
Then, they eat, and they sit on the couch playing video games or watching television until they’re too tired to go on anymore. The work week is the worst. Especially now that the work week just means four days away from Derek.

Point being, that’s what they’re doing at seven o’clock in the evening on the first very hot night of June – couching it. Stiles is still in his work clothes sans shoes, while Scott ripped his button down off some time ago and is now just in his dress khakis and under shirt, no socks, chewing on a twizzler hanging out of his mouth. In a lot of ways, it truly is like they never actually fucking left college.

There’s a knock on the door, and Scott huffs through his nose and chews harder. “One minute!” He hollers toward the small foyer from his spot on the couch. He jams some buttons on the controller, as if pressing them faster will somehow make the game end faster, but the knocking comes again. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, nearly breaking the A key clean off. “One minute!”

“Just pause,” Stiles says beside him, although not stopping anytime soon himself. They go on like that for another several seconds, and the knocks are back.

Scott whips his head like he’s about to shout something truly venomous in the door’s direction, gets shot in the head on screen, and gives both Scott and Stiles the dreaded END screen. “Oh, god dammit,” he huffs, looking at the screen and throwing his controller down on the couch. “For fuck’s sake.”

All the same, up he goes, muttering about disrespect and proper times of the day to come a’knockin the entire way. He peeps through the peephole, pulls away with a baffled expression on his face, glancing once in Stiles’ direction. Stiles raises his eyebrows, suddenly very interested in these proceedings.

Scott opens up the door, and from Stiles’ angle, all he can see is the door and Scott for a moment. He hears a cheery girl say, “flowergram!”

“This is a flowergram?” Scott points at whatever she’s got there in her arms, a frown on his face. “It’s a flowervillage.”

“Are you Stiles?”

Stiles stands up, leaving his controller on the coffee table and practically running over to see what it is that has Scott looking so dumbfounded up at the door. He comes over, rounding the door, and stops dead in his tracks. The girl is holding flowers, yes, but Scott’s comment about a flowervillage suddenly doesn’t seem so dramatic or ridiculous.

She’s holding a vase the size of her body, clutching it against herself with a plastered on smile, and there are roses. Oho, are there roses. Stiles’ immediate guess is somewhere around fifty, but then, he thinks there are more than even that. Seventy-five possibly? The most interesting part about them, however, is their color.

They’re orange. Closer to peach, actually.

Stiles says, “I’m Stiles,” reaching out to take them out of her hands. She looks relieved, and Stiles gets why – the thing is fucking heavy. There’s water in the vase, the vase itself is solid and nice glass, and the roses are way too many. It has to weigh somewhere around twenty or thirty pounds.

While Scott stands there saying something or other to the flowergram girl, likely inquiring whether or not she’s been paid (and Stiles is certain she’s already been paid and tipped very handsomely), Stiles takes his roses and hobbles off to the kitchen with them. He sets them down on the kitchen table, which is likely where they’ll have to live until they all inevitably die very soon since neither Scott nor Stiles has very much of a green thumb, and hunts around for a card.

He pokes in the roses, noting at least that they’re all dethorned, and then he comes up with a small little card on a plastic stick hanging around somewhere on the left side of the bunch. He snatches it up, undoing the tiny envelope marked with his name in crisp, clear handwriting.

Inside, the card is small, and the words written on it are short and to the point.

Earned it? – D. H.

Stiles’ face splits out into a grin, and he hugs the little card against his chest for a second, feeling all dopey and stupid. Stiles doesn’t even necessarily like roses, isn’t even really a flower person, but these are so pretty and likely very expensive, and Derek took the time out of his day to go to a flower shop and pick them out and write the card.

Most enticing of all about the entire thing is that he did all that just so he could see a picture of Stiles’ fucking underwear. It’s insane. Stiles fucking loves it.

He leaves the flowers downstairs on the table and runs upstairs to his bedroom, closing the door behind him and clutching the little note in his hand. He makes quick work of sticking it along the frame in his dresser mirror, where he keeps other momentos like concert tickets and polaroid pictures of he and his friends, and then he pulls his phone out of his khakis pocket and sets it on the bedside table.

He undoes his pants, shucking them off quickly like they disgust him, and then unbuttons his shirt as well until he’s standing there in nothing but the peachy underwear. They’re a bit flowery around the top, turning to satin in the crotch area, and they’re frankly one of Stiles’ favorite pairs – they’re insanely comfortable and soft. They look like he should be wearing pearls with them, or something.

Inside his dresser, he paws around in one of the bottom drawers until he comes up with an article of clothing he’d long forgotten about, or at least tried to bury deep all the way in the bottom. He takes it out, shaking some of the wrinkles from being confined so long out of the fabric, and holds it up.

It’s a white crop top. Short sleeved. When he puts it on, it comes up right above his belly button, fits perfectly around the shoulders. He looks at himself in the mirror and feels very pleased, before hopping up onto the bed on all fours and grabbing at his phone.

He had already planned what the picture was going to look like even before the roses had come. He’d known, unequivocally, that Derek was going to find a way to earn it. He just hadn’t known how, just yet.

Stiles sets his phone up sideways on his bedside table, leaning up against a full glass of water so it stays upright. He opens the camera app and then picks a filter quick, before arranging himself just how he wants to be.

He spreads his legs a little wider, arches his back just enough, parts his lips after licking them, and widens his eyes slightly. Satisfied with what he sees reflected at himself on his phone screen, he reaches out, having to stretch a bit, and presses the timer button.

It blinks at him, and he puts the finger of one of his hands gently to his lips. Not quite sucking on it, but almost. The picture takes, and Stiles flops down to get a better look at it. He lies on his back and holds the phone above his face, zooming in on every individual detail of the thing.

And holy hell, it’s perfect. His ass is just up enough in the air, the angle offers just the smallest of peeks at the bulge in the panties, and his facial expression….oh, man. He looks like some fucking twink begging a huge dude to fuck their brains out.

Which, in a lot of ways, is exactly the case.

Stiles doesn’t hesitate before opening up Derek’s text thread, attaching the image in a message, and sending it without a word.

Actual Daddy, 7:45 PM : Oh, fuck yeah.  
Actual Daddy, 7:46 PM : Jesus Christ, you’re a good boy.  
Actual Daddy, 7:46 PM : Is that a fucking crop top?  
Me, 7:48 PM : You like it?  
Actual Daddy, 7:49 PM : The crop top and the entire picture, yes.  
Actual Daddy, 7:50 PM : Fucking hell, that’s sexy.  
Actual Daddy, 7:51 PM : Bring that shirt with you on Friday, yeah?  
Me, 7:52 PM : Whatever you say. (:  
Actual Daddy, 7:53PM : I take it you liked your flowers.  
Me, 7:54 PM : Veeerrrryyy much. No one’s ever given me so many flowers before lmao.  
Actual Daddy, 7:55 PM : I like expensive flowers as a gesture, so get used to it.  
Actual Daddy, 7:56 PM : I can’t stop looking at this fucking picture. I’m in a meeting, for god’s sake.

Oh, and that’s just fucking perfect. Oh, my God. Stiles presses his hands to his face and screams a laugh out into the silence of his bedroom, shaking with it. He imagines Derek fucking sitting there at a round table with a bunch of other rich men and women, the floor to ceiling windows behind them overlooking the entire city as the sun only just starts to fade away, and Derek’s phone vibrating on the table.

He looks at it, ducks it down before anyone else can see it, and has to clear his throat and pretend like he’s not getting a raging hard on in his pants. It’s funny, because Stiles had listed himself as a submissive type on the website and by all counts, Stiles is the more submissive one by definition in their relationship or whatever it is at this stage.

Yet Stiles has so much power sometimes, it’s scary. He laughs and laughs, almost maniacal.

***

Actual Daddy, 5:45 PM : You need me to pick you up?  
Me, 5:47 PM : Nah, Scott is driving me.  
Actual Daddy, 5:48 PM : Dinner will be ready for you when you get here.  
Me, 5:49 PM : yeeesssssss  
Stiles takes the elevator up to the penthouse with his backpack slung over his shoulders, holding onto the straps and biting his lip as he watches the red numbers go up and up and up. There’s a certain kind of thrill he gets when the numbers switch to PH, the elevator stops, and then open up to Derek’s foyer. It’s like he’s in a movie, or something.

He steps out onto the nice marble floors and his footsteps echo a bit in the empty room, save for a couple of potted plants and Derek’s front door. He knocks, and within seconds Derek is opening up the door and looking him up and down. Stiles is just in jeans and a red t-shirt, nothing to really write home about it, but Derek traces over every last inch of him as though he’s checking him for injury or something.

“Hey,” Stiles says, stepping inside. Derek doesn’t move backwards, so Stiles steps right into his chest and kisses him, wrapping his hand around the back of his neck. They kiss for a minute, door wide open, and Stiles feels all fluttery and light when they pull apart, as Derek wraps his hand around Stiles’ face and cradles it gently, smiling at him.

“C’mon,” Derek says, gesturing with his head for Stiles to go inside. Stiles does, stepping around him while Derek shuts the door behind them. “Tell me about your week.”

Derek’s place looks just the same as it did before, shiny and brand new looking all the time, except for this time, there’s the distinct smell of food. Which Stiles inhales greedily, listening to his stomach growl. He hasn’t eaten since lunch at noon, and whatever Derek’s got cooking up in here smells really good. “Well,” Stiles starts, as Derek makes quick work of taking Stiles’ backpack for him and setting it gently on the ground next to the couch. “Not much to report, honestly. Scott still hasn’t made a move on that girl at the mall, work still sucks, I’m still taking the train.”

They come into the dining room, big and wide with a gigantic table that could easily sit fifteen people. But right now, there’s only two places set, all the way at the end, with two flickering candles and a bottle of champagne that’s already been uncorked. Derek leads Stiles down the row of empty chairs and pulls one out for him, so Stiles sits and pushes himself in. “Although, one thing to report – some of my roses are already dying.”

Derek clucks his tongue but doesn’t look entirely surprised, leaning over and grabbing the champagne out of its bucket of ice. He pours Stiles a glass as he runs the fingers of his free hand up and down Stiles’ back. “We can always get more,” is what he says, and of course that’s his answer. Looking around at this place, while he’s getting served champagne in a room that has marble flooring, he bets that Derek sees the world as something he can buy. Anything that’s broken can just be replaced, no need to bother with fixing it.

He sets the bottle back in the ice and vanishes through the swinging door leading into the kitchen, presumably to grab the food. Stiles sits there and fiddles with the satin cloth napkin, sips his champagne lightly and stares at the painting on the wall directly across from him. It’s a Velasquez, Stiles is pretty sure.

Derek returns with two steaming plates of food and Stiles perks up instantly, already wielding his fork. He places one down in front of his own place, which is of course the head of the table, and then sets Stiles’ down gently in front of him. As he’s leaning down, Stiles kisses his cheek and says, “thank you, daddy.”

In response, Derek rubs his hand up and down Stiles’ back before moving to sit at his own place. He shakes his napkin out and puts it in his lap, so Stiles mirrors him if only because he thinks he should.

Looking down at his food, he sees that it’s chicken marsala set over a bed of linguini noodles, which is just what the doctor ordered. Stiles is a big fan of Italian food – he doesn’t know if Derek necessarily knows that, or if he’s just really good at guessing what Stiles likes. After all, he bought Stiles lingerie that Stiles is all but obsessed with. Why wouldn’t he be good at guessing what Stiles like to eat, as well?

“What about you?” Stiles asks, rolling some pasta onto his fork and dragging it along in the sauce. “Anything interesting to report?”

Derek keeps his eyes trained down on his food, cutting into his chicken a bit viciously, almost. He shrugs his shoulders, still not looking Stiles in the eyes. “Not really,” he says, shrugging again. “Same old same.”

“See?” Stiles says, picking up his champagne glass and smiling just a little bit. “Four days really isn’t a long time to go without seeing each other.”

“Felt that way to me.”

And, yeah. Stiles gets that. He takes another bite of his food and then rakes his eyes up and down Derek a pit perfunctorily, taking in the sight of another of his button down shirts, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the tie missing. Stiles chews, and then his eyes zero in on something right by the collar, and he frowns at it a bit, leaning in closer to get a better look. “You’ve got something on your…” he cocks his head to the side. “Is that blood?”

Derek stops chewing for a fraction of a second, and then looks down to see what Stiles is looking at. He sets his fork down and rustles the fabric around, so both of them can get a better look at it. It’s definitely blood. There’s three distinct dots of it, gathered around Derek’s collar like a little grouping. Derek says, “I had a nose bleed earlier,” and then pushes his shirt down and meets Stiles’ eyes steadily.

Well, okay, Stiles thinks, going back to his food.

The rest of the conversation is relatively normal as they finish up eating, and this time, Stiles limits himself to only two glasses of champagne so nothing gets too wildly out of hand. Derek cleans up the plates and takes them away, and from the one loud distinct clinking Stiles hears through the door right before Derek returns, Stiles assumes he just dumped them into the sink for the mysterious maid to take care of.

He sits back down at the table, gives Stiles a look, and says, “we have some things to talk about, baby.”

Derek produces a small black box, tied with a red ribbon again, and deposits it on the table right in between the two of them. Stiles looks at it, and his face splits into a grin. “Present?” He asks, even though it surely is.

“Yes. But in a minute,” he taps the box and pulls it out of Stiles’ reach just a little bit, while Stiles’ eyes track it and he licks his lips in excitement. “Let’s get some of the important stuff out of the way, okay?”

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, holding his glass and waiting expectantly for Derek to elaborate some more.

“There are a lot of moving parts to relationships like this. And I think what you like is simple, and what I like is simple, but there are still some things we need to talk about.”

Oh, Stiles blinks. He gets what they’re talking about, now. “Yeah,” he says, slowly.

“First of all, I want you to pick a safe word –“

“Papaya,” he says, instantly. He’s thought about this before. Derek stares at him for a second, a smile curling up on his face as he potentially waits for Stiles to say that he’s just kidding.

“Okay,” he starts, a huff of a laugh escaping his lips. “Let’s try and pick something a little less ridiculous.”

“No safe word is ridiculous. Or, actually, they’re all ridiculous, that’s the point,” he narrows his eyes.

“I just want it to be serious.”

“Oh, it’ll sound a lot more serious when you do something I don’t like and I’m screaming papaya at you.”

Derek laughs. He covers his mouth with his hand and laughs through the cracks, and just like always, it’s infectious, so Stiles can’t help but laugh a bit with him. “Babe – baby – please. Just, for me. Pick something else.”

With a heaving sigh, Stiles rolls his eyes up to the ceiling. He swishes his champagne around in its glass and hems and haws, trying to think of all the words he knows. He attempts thinking of serious words, but all he can come up with is shit like pestilence, herpes, assassin, dead babies, and none of that is going to work.

Then, he has a light bulb. He snaps his fingers and says, “how about, safe word.”

Derek looks at him for a moment, like he’s thinking about it. “Safe word,” he repeats.

“It’s elegant,” Stiles holds one finger out, “it’s simple,” a second finger, “it’s to the point.”

“Your safe word is safe-word.”

“It’s the safe word within the safe word,” he taps his temple. “Safe wordception.”

With a light laugh, Derek nods and says, “okay,” and then he says it to himself once or twice as if to make the mental note of it, or train himself to hear that word and instantly pull back. “Second of all, I want to know your hard limits. All of them.”

“Oho,” Stiles sips his drink and smirks. “There are quite a few. Buckle in, my friend. First off, no pissing on me. That is number one, all the time, always. And I don’t even have to say no taking a dump on me, because that’s just common sense.”

Derek sits there, mouth hanging half open, but he listens all the same.

“No pain play, no knives, no hitting me on any part of my body with anything other than your hand, and even that is like, a sometimes. Okay?”

“Okay,” Derek agrees, nodding along.

“I don’t like being called a bitch or a useless cocksleeve or whatever the hell else,” he pauses for a second, thinking it over. “Slut is okay.”

“Okay,” Derek says again, and he’s got the most intense expression on his face, like he’s putting all of this away in his mental filing cabinet.

“That’s all I can think of right now, but you get the idea.” He leans back in his chair and raises his eyebrows, waiting for Derek to make some commentary on the whole thing. Like, as if he expects Derek to argue any of his points, or come up with a powerpoint presentation on why getting the shit beat out of him during sex is actually a pretty cool thing and Stiles should consider it.

Instead, Derek just says, “what about things that you’re not sure about yet?”

“Oh, uh –“ he squints, rubbing at his jawline as he tries to think. “Um…”

“This is just a preliminary type of a conversation. Anything you think of later, you can say. Just – off the top of your head, for my own reference.”

Stiles clears his throat and taps his fingers on the tabletop. “Spanking, is one. Like a little bit I think would be okay, but I don’t want you to like…” he gestures his hands a bit, and Derek watches the movement. “…beat me. You understand what I mean? Like, if you were going to, I’d want it to be sexy and not just like you’re hitting me and hitting me and hitting me. You get what I mean?”

“I do,” Derek agrees, voice low.

“Well that’s,” he scratches at his cheek a bit nervously, having to look away. “…that’s one thing. That’s what I can think of.”

Derek smiles at him, all teeth. “Okay,” he says, reaching out to take Stiles’ hand and squeeze it nice and tight. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Stiles says a bit hastily, clearing his throat again. “Can I uh – ask you something?”

“Anything.”

Stiles stares at his lap, where Derek still has his hand in Stiles’, and puckers his lips a bit. “What do you, uh…expect from me? In this relationship? Like what’s my – what do you want?”

Derek looks at him for what feels like a long time, as if he’s trying to assess what Stiles means. He cocks his head to the side and looks Stiles up and down, in such a way that it nearly sends shivers up Stiles’ back to be looked at so entirely, like that. He parts his lips and says, “I expect you to do what I say when we’re in bed. I’ll buy you whatever you want, treat you to whatever you want, and you get to play coy and manipulate me and use your body as leverage,” which Stiles has certainly already done, more than once at that, and he feels zero shame about, “…but in a scene, or whatever you feel like calling it? You’re mine. And you do as I ask you to.”

It’s embarrassing, how Stiles’ dick jumps in his pants. How much Derek’s words just have this effect on him, to make him this useless sex animal that just wants to be touched all the time – he’s got the sexiest way of just existing, and even more so when he talks about being in control. Stiles likes it. He likes it a lot. He wants Derek to hold him down and spit in his face while fucking him, or something, it’s sick.

“Okay,” Stiles agrees. Just like that. It’s easy, to give himself to Derek completely only in the safety of his bedroom. It’s the easiest thing in the god damn world to give power over to Derek, while everywhere else, Stiles practically holds court with him.

Guaranteed, outside of the bedroom – it’s Stiles saying jump and Derek saying how high? Stiles could ask Derek right this very second to go out and try and find him a diamond ring in spite of it being nearly eight o’clock at night, and Derek would get up and pull some strings and get it for him. Stiles is beyond fine with that. Derek can pull the strings when it comes to sex, that’s fine.

Stiles just has alllll the other strings. Every last one of them.

“Can I get my present now?” Stiles asks, and Derek laughs and picks the box up.

“Yes, you can have your present now, brat.”

Stiles makes grabby gestures until the box is in his hands, and once it is, he tears the ribbon off quickly and tosses it to the side. He plucks the top of and is met with more tissue paper, just like last time, but this box is much smaller than the one from before.

He clears the paper to find what looks to him like a choker – a red one. When his hands touch it, he finds it to be red velvet, and he runs his fingers along the length of it.

“I’ve done the collar thing before,” Derek explains, and Stiles meets his eyes and licks his lips as soon as the word collar comes out of his mouth. “And that’s fine. But I wanted you to have something you could wear all the time that people wouldn’t question.”

Stiles holds it up in his hands and he likes it. He likes it a lot. It’s not too big and not too small, and since chokers are in now anyway, no one is going to wonder about it. They might think it’s a little gay, a 23 year old man wearing a choker – but then, he is gay. So…?

“You understand what that means, right?” Derek touches his neck, strokes his fingers along the exact spot where the choker would go. “If you put that on, it’s you letting me know that you’re my good boy and your body is mine. No one else’s. You understand?”

Stiles swallows, thick and heavy, and he strokes the choker some more. “Yes,” he says, meeting Derek’s eyes. “Will you put it on for me, daddy?”

Derek breathes what could be a sigh of relief, and quickly takes it out of Stiles’ hands to unclasp it at the back. “Of course,” he says, and Stiles turns his head. Derek drapes it across the front of Stiles’ neck, and then his fingers poke and fiddle at the back of his neck as he tries to get it clasped.

The seconds tick by, and Stiles says, “I take it you’ve never had many girlfriends to put necklaces on before.”

“Don’t mock,” he says lightly, and then it clicks, and it’s on. Derek pulls his hands away and turns Stiles to face forward, admiring his handiwork. He runs his finger underneath the choker, against his neck and the fabric at once, and he smiles. “It looks very pretty.”

“Thanks,” Stiles says, touching it himself gently.

“It’s real genuine velvet, so you’ll have to take it off when you shower,” he explains, picking up the mess Stiles had made of the box and the ribbon. “But I expect you to always be wearing it otherwise.”

“Roger that,” Stiles says. It shouldn’t really be a problem, after all – Stiles genuinely likes it and he wants it on all the time. “Are we going to play tonight?”

Derek levels him with a look. “Yes,” he says.

Running his finger in a slow circle around on Derek’s fine tablecloth, he asks, “what’s on the agenda?”

With a smile so wide it’s almost blinding, Derek says, “lots of rope,” and Stiles likes the sound of that.

***

There truly is nothing like having breakfast at an actual breakfast nook at nine o’clock in the morning. And there is literally nothing like having breakfast in an actual breakfast nook at nine o’clock in the morning with an incredibly hot dude who made you come three times the night before. Stiles has got aches in his arms from being tied up, a couple of bruises on the insides of his thighs, and hickeys all up and down his neck, but he doesn’t care.  
He’s content and happy, slicing into his eggs and watching Derek sip at his coffee across the table, staring at his phone. Stiles nudges him underneath the table with his knee like pay attention to me, and Derek takes the hint and puts his phone face down, meeting Stiles’ gaze. “What’d you want to do today?” He asks, and Stiles puts his chin in his palm and smiles.

“The fair is in town.”

Derek freezes in the middle of cutting his sausage link. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” Stiles is half offended by the accusation.

“You want to go to the fair. As two grown men.”

“Hey,” Stiles kicks him under the table this time, and Derek barely reacts. “The fair is for people of all ages. It’s for the young and the old and the in-between. Come on, I wanna go.”

Like he can’t even wrap his head around the idea, Derek makes a face and puts his fork down, huffing. “What do you even want to do there? Go on the merry-go-round?”

He’s making fun of the entire thing, and is most likely going to put his foot down very soon and the entire idea will be shot down. The thing is, Stiles does genuinely want to go. Like, really really badly. He has always liked the fair, and he maintains still that it’s not just for kids. He likes funnel cakes and stupid rides and dinky little games and petting zoos. Just because he’s an adult now that doesn’t mean he instantly hates all the fun things in life, like Derek apparently does.

So, with all that in mind, he leans over the table and lowers his voice a bit. “Daddy,” he says, and Derek gives him this look like he knows exactly what Stiles is doing, “please can we go?”

Derek palms his face. But he says, “all right. Fine. I’ll take you.”

Pleased and satisfied with having gotten what he wanted, Stiles just smiles and goes back to eating his breakfast.

***

Derek puts on jeans and a t-shirt and takes Stiles into the elevator, and for the first time since they met, Stiles gets to see one of the cars that Derek actually drives himself around in. There’s a garage at the bottom level of the apartment building, and they walk together with their footsteps echoing until coming to a stop in front of a silver Audi.  
Derek unlocks it and it chirps, and Stiles is surprised. He doesn’t know why he is – maybe he was expecting a lambo or something, or maybe even a range rover. Derek doesn’t strike Stiles as the Audi type, but then, he figures this is just Derek’s day car.

As they climb inside, Stiles says, “you have other cars?”

“I do,” Derek answers, turning the engine on with a gentle purr. “I’ve got a private garage outside of town.”

“Jesus,” Stiles murmurs, and he can’t even fathom that. He cannot imagine having so much money that there are two cars, let alone enough to warrant buying an entire garage just to fucking house them. Derek must be fucking loaded. Stiles likely hasn’t even seen a sixteenth of how much money he has.

And from what? Stiles still hasn’t gotten a straight answer.

They drive to the fair, and Derek grumbles a bit about having to park in a dirt lot in his fancy ass car when they get there. Stiles just ignores him in favor of lacing their fingers together and trudging through the dried up mud, looking down to make sure Derek wore sensible shoes. He did. This is also the first time that Stiles has seen Derek in pretty much anything but a button down and dress pants.

As soon as they’re at the actual fair, Derek wraps his arm around Stiles’ neck and slips a pair of sunglasses onto his face, frowning out across the crowds and pretty much ignoring everyone else. They walk and talk for a while, passing by gaggles of children and annoyed looking parents and swarms of teenagers, and Stiles feels all light inside his chest.

It’s so nice to have an actual boyfriend who actually listens to him when he talks and engages him in conversations and does the things that Stiles wants to do. Granted, Stiles had to half beg Derek to take him here, but still. He’s here and he’s not complaining and he’s got his arm around Stiles like he’s proud to be seen with him, and it’s just nice.

Derek buys him a funnel cake, so they find a spot to sit together on the edges of all the excitement. It’s a picnic table underneath a big apple tree, affording them some semblance of privacy in such a crowded place. Stiles picks the cake apart with his fingers and offers chunks to Derek, who politely declines, choosing instead to sit there absentmindedly stroking at some of the rope marks on Stiles’ wrist.

“I can’t believe you won’t have any,” Stiles says around a mouthful, barely taking the time to swallow before he’s onto the next bite. “This is some of my favorite shit in the world.”

“Hm,” Derek says. “It’s a heart attack in powdered sugar.”

“That’s such a lame thing to say. Like, yeah, maybe if I ate twenty a day they’d kill me.”

Derek laughs through his nose and turns to look at Stiles. It’s hard to tell if he’s being looked at in the eyes, since all he can see are the black lenses of Derek’s sunglasses reflecting his own face right back at him. “All right. Enjoy your snack and I’ll sit here without comment.”

“Well,” Stiles starts, picking at what’s left on his paper plate. “I’ve never actually had a whole one to myself before. I always used to share with my mom when I’d come,” he sucks some sugar off his fingertips and dusts the same stuff off the front of his black t-shirt. He side-eyes Derek a bit before he speaks, hesitant about whether or not he’s oversharing. “She died when I was eleven.”

Derek looks at him some more, and his lips curve down into a frown. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, and Stiles shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s just been me and my dad since. Maybe you know him. He’s the Sheriff.”

“I knew that the day I met you,” Derek says, and then sort of looks quickly away as if he’s just said something he shouldn’t have. He clears his throat and pulls his hand away from Stiles’ wrist, frowning up at the sun.

“How would you know that?” Stiles demands, narrowing his eyes.

Derek taps his fingers on the table top and shrugs his shoulders. “Your name. Stiles,” he emphasizes it a bit, and when Stiles just sits there staring at him with owl eyes, Derek elaborates further. “Everyone knows the name of the Sheriff’s son.”

That’s true in some circles, Stiles would bet. But average every day people? Random rich guys living in the penthouse of the nicest building in Beacon Hills trolling the internet for someone to have weird sex with? Not the kind of people who would know Stiles’ name or instantly know whose son he was.

He’s just about to say as much, and then Derek abruptly stands from the table and collects what’s left of Stiles’ forgotten funnel cake. He deposits it in the garbage nearby, and then holds his hand out for Stiles to take, gesturing with two fingers. “Let’s go see the animals,” he suggests, and Stiles can’t say no to that.

Up he goes, and by the time Stiles is getting a pile of pellets licked out of his hand by an alpaca, the earlier conversation is all but forgotten.

***

They make it back to Derek’s place a little before five o’clock, where they immediately pile onto his couch and remove their shoes before tracking all the dirt from the fair onto his nice carpeting. Derek piles them up in his hands and takes them over to the laundry room hidden off to the side, where the maid who Stiles still has not laid eye on will presumably be left to deal with them.  
As he’s walking back, Stiles says, “thanks for taking me.” Derek sits down next to him and breathes out a big sigh. “I had a lot of fun.”

“Absolutely.” He kisses Stiles on the tip of his nose and smiles, so Stiles smiles back at him. “After watching you eat that funnel cake, I feel like I have to work out.”

“Ugh,” Stiles rolls his eyes, thumping back into the couch and huffing. “Gross.”

“Yeah,” Derek stretches his arms a few times, while Stiles just stares at him through narrowed slits and purses his lips together. “I think I’ll do that.”

Even as Stiles sits there and watches Derek get up and start moving toward his bedroom, almost certainly to put on workout clothes or whatever the hell, Stiles has to ask. “You’re really going to work out right now?”

“You’re welcome to join,” Derek calls over his shoulder, but he pairs it with a big sarcastic fucking grin that tells Stiles that he knows Stiles is certainly going to fucking say shit no.

“I’d rather eat glass,” he says, and Derek’s laugh echoes down the hallway.

Some forty-five minutes later, Derek comes back into his bedroom and stops short in the doorway. Stiles looks over his shoulder and smiles from where he’s spread out on his belly in Derek’s bed, putting his phone down and turning over so Derek can see the whole picture.

Stiles has got on the red thigh highs, a pair of satin white boy shorts, and of course, the crop top, and Derek just stands there and stares at him, mouth hanging open. He says, in the most sultry voice he can manage, “you’re not too tired from your work out, are you?”

Derek walks into the room and drops a pair of running shoes he’d been holding in his hands down on the floor without a single care in the world. He practically throws them across the room. Within seconds, he’s kneeing his way onto the bed and prowling after Stiles like a predator, while Stiles just laughs and pretends to try to get away.

Derek grabs him by his ankle and pulls him back with a swish of Stiles’ body on the bedding, flipping him over by his hip and palming at Stiles’ bulge through the flowery white fabric. Stiles hitches his legs up a bit in invitation, closing his eyes and pushing up into the touch. Derek only touches him for a matter of seconds, maybe only doing it because he can do anything he wants here, and then he pulls his hand away and looks Stiles in the eyes. “Go up to the head of the bed, on your knees.”

Since he never has to be asked twice, Stiles flips over and gets on his hands and knees, crawling up towards the pillows and stopping once he’s gone as far as he can go. Then, he looks over his shoulder for more instructions to find that Derek has followed him, eyes locked on Stiles’ ass in his panties. “Put your hands on the headboard.”

Stiles does. He wraps his fingers around the metal and ducks his head down, breathing in between his arms and licking his lips in anticipation.

Derek touches Stiles’ ass, caressing what of it is exposed from the low rise of his underwear. “Arch your back for me, baby. That’s it,” he says, as Stiles moves quickly to comply. “Just like that. Perfect. Now,” Derek tugs on the elastic of the lace until it slides down his hips and onto his thighs, slipping it past his calves and over his ankles. “Spread your legs.”

Stiles does, as wide as he can.

“You’re going to stay in this position, and I’m going to fuck you with my fingers until I decide you’re ready for my cock. And you’ll keep your position while you take it. Understand?”

He swallows the lump in his throat, breathing a shaky breath into the pillows. “Yes, daddy.”

Derek pats Stiles on his lower back gently. “Good boy.”

***

Me, 4:34 PM : Can I use your credit card?  
Daddy, 4:36 PM : I always knew this day would come.  
Daddy, 4:36 PM : Yes. You’ll have to come pick it up.  
Me, 4:38 PM : Are you…in your office building?  
Daddy, 4:42 PM : We’re doing a bit of business from my place.  
Daddy, 4:42 PM : Come get your money, baby.  
Stiles knocks on Derek’s front door and doesn’t know what he expects to find on the other side of it. In his head, he’s imagining a bunch of people in business suits crowded around his dining room table, calculators crunching all over the place, manila folders everywhere, ties and suits and the whole nines.

But Derek opens up, and he’s in a button down and khakis like always. A purple button down at that, and Stiles raises his eyebrows at it. He really likes that. As a result, he leans forward and runs his hand down Derek’s chest, a movement that Derek follows with his eyes until catching Stiles’ hand by the wrist. “It looks good,” Stiles says, voice low.

“Try not to be too sexy in front of my associates.”

Stiles licks his lips, cocking his head to the side. “It’s a bit hard,” he admits. “Not having seen you.”

They literally just woke up together the morning before. It’s only Monday, day one of the four days they don’t get to see each other out of the week, and yet here they are, making heart eyes at each other while Stiles can hear the distinct sound of chatter over Derek’s head.

Derek leans in and kisses Stiles feather-light on the lips, cupping his jaw with a firm hand, and then that’s all Stiles gets. He opens the door up all the way and beckons Stiles inside.

The men and women in business suits that Stiles had been imagining didn’t quite hit the mark on the reality – not really even close. Stiles walks into Derek’s living room and sees several people spread out on his couch, and the second he’s within their sights, they’re eyeing him up and down as if they’ve heard aalll about him and now they want to get a good long look at him.

There are no calculators, and there are no manila folders, but there a handful of closed briefcases sitting around their feet, locked up tight. There’s a woman on one end of the couch with curly blonde hair that smiles very wide when Stiles’ eyes land on her, and beside her a red-haired woman who has her arms crossed over her chest and her foot tapping a bit severely, face blank, and then a big guy whose shirt barely fits him, eyeing Stiles with a cool, heavy gaze.

“Um –“ Stiles starts, and then Derek is right next to his shoulders, looking out across the room himself as if he’s gauging everyone’s reactions.

“This is Stiles,” Derek says, patting him gently on the back as if to say here he is. “Stiles, this is Erica, Lydia, and Boyd.”

“Hi,” Stiles says, because what the hell else is he supposed to say? They all stare back at him with this look, like they already know him, or something. Erica, for one, looks the most pleasant out of all of them, but even then, her smile seems more calculated than it does genuine. She sort of looks like she wants to eat him.

None of them say anything back to him, so Stiles looks up at Derek’s face and hopes Derek can read the outright discomfort written all over it. Derek does, thankfully, and with a bit of a sigh, he takes Stiles’ by his shoulders and leads him over to the kitchen to afford them a modicum of privacy.

Once they’re out of earshot, Stiles looks over his shoulder and stares at the backs of their heads, frowning. “Those are the people you work with?” He demands, and Derek nods his head. “They…do not look like business people.”

“They’re not usually so brusque,” is what Derek says, even though it’s barely a response to Stiles’ commentary at all. “It’s just been a long day. Anyway,” he switches the subject lightning fast, reaching into his pocket to pull his wallet out. “What do you want this for anyway?”

Stiles smiles, nearly forgetting about the other people across the room. “You’ll see,” he says, and Derek briefly looks up to meet his eyes as he flicks through the contents of his wallet. Because he can’t help himself, Stiles peers down at the contents of it, and just like he suspected, there’s damn near eight credit cards in the thing. Stiles bets there’s one for eating out, one for business expenses, one for buying idiotic shit, and one in specific for giving to Stiles.

He fishes out an American Express and holds it up in the air between he and Stiles. When Stiles reaches out to grab it, Derek pulls it just out Stiles’ reach and lifts his eyebrows. “If I find a charge for a BMX motorbike on here or anything else of equal stupidity, you’ll be in trouble.”

“It’s not like you don’t have the money to buy me a BMX motorbike,” Stiles counters with a huff.

“I have the money,” Derek agrees, and then tops it off with, “but that’s something you ask me for. Use your judgment.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, and then makes a grabby gesture. When Derek just stands there giving Stiles that same stern look, Stiles throws his hands in the air and lowers his voice a bit, so the others certainly won’t hear. “Okay, I understand, daddy, please?”

Derek brings the card back within Stiles’ reach, and Stiles snatches it up like it’s the holy grail. He wonders what the spending limit is on this thing, and then he’s pretty sure there literally isn’t one. Stiles likely couldn’t burn it out no matter how hard he tried, at least not in a single day’s worth of shopping.

“Be a good boy,” Derek reminds him, kissing him on the forehead before taking him by the arm and leading him towards the front door again. “I wish I could be with you, instead, but we really do have a lot of work to get done.”

As they pass, the three stooges all turn their heads at the same time to stare at him some more, varying expressions of thinly veiled distaste on their faces. Stiles doesn’t necessarily get why they don’t seem to like him that much – is it because Stiles is a distraction, or something? Or maybe they’re homophobes. Or maybe it’s not even worth thinking about all that much.

“Okay,” Stiles turns as the front door opens, backstepping out of the apartment with the credit card clutched in his fingers. “When should I bring this back?”

Derek waves his hand, like it’s non-essential. “You can give it back to me on Friday.”

With a raise of his eyebrows, Stiles says, “you trust me that much with your money.”

“Well, that,” he leans in once Stiles is out the door and kisses him on the lips, pulling back only slightly, “and you know I can see everything you do with it.”

“Suppose I did buy a BMX motorbike,” he taps the card against the palm of his hand, “what would you actually do about it?”

Derek smiles at him, leaning back into his place and shaking his head. “You’re a good boy,” he says. “You don’t need to think about that.”

***

Daddy, 7:23 AM : I checked the statement on that card and I have to say – I’m underwhelmed.  
Me, 7:33 AM : LMAO. What, did you think I’d go on a ten thousand dollar shopping spree?  
Me, 7:35 AM : I just wanted some new things for you, is all.  
Daddy, 7:37 AM : I’m guessing the bizarre name of the charge is some sort of lingerie store.  
Me, 7:38 AM : Stop spoiling your surprise. God!  
Daddy, 7:40 AM : Nice things?  
Me, 7:42 AM : Veeerrryyy nice (:  
Daddy, 7:44 AM : Seeing as how I gave you my credit card…  
Me, 7:45 AM : here we go.  
Daddy, 7:46 AM : …how about you send me a picture in some of what you bought?  
Me, 7:47 AM : Eh…maybe if you’d let me get the BMX bike :/  
Daddy, 7:49 AM : You are an impossible vixen. I’ll grovel some more, I guess.  
Me, 7:50 AM : (:  
***

Derek sends a box of gourmet chocolate covered strawberries to Stiles and Scott’s house, each of them about the size of Stiles’ palm. He’s never seen strawberries so big in his life, and he and Scott take turns comparing their size to random things in the house – the toaster, an oven mitt, Scott’s shoe, and on and on. Then they spoil their dinner by eating all of them at once, Stiles makes himself sick on white chocolate, and Scott falls asleep on the couch after his sugar rush.  
All the same, Stiles owes Derek a picture. He has a stomach ache and he can hear Scott snoring from all the way upstairs, but he puts on some of his new things and arranges himself for the picture. He takes it up from above, so the picture only catches his lips and chin, his bare chest, practically see through red underwear revealed by his spread open legs, and the very top of some fishnet stockings.

Daddy, 9:34 PM : You actually sent this one while I was at home, this time.  
Daddy, 9:35 PM : Now I can respond to it how I want to.  
Me, 9:36 PM : Which is how?

About a millisecond later, Stiles’ phone is buzzing on his chest. He blinks, surprised – he doesn’t think Derek’s ever actually called him on the phone before, or vice versa, but there his name is flashing across the screen, and Stiles is answering it.

“You’ve still got that outfit on?” His voice sounds slightly different over the phone – lower, somehow, a lot more serious. It might have something to do with Stiles not being able to see his facial expressions.

“I do,” Stiles says, shifting a little in his place on the bed. “You don’t want to have phone sex, do you?”

“Not exactly,” he says back, and Stiles can hear some amusement in his tone. “I just wanted to hear your voice. More specifically, I wanted to hear your voice saying certain things.”

“Ah,” Stiles says, understanding dawning over him. “All right. Tell me what to say.”

“Sometimes you’re so fucking impossible, and other times –“ there’s a distinct rustling sound on the other line. Stiles has half a mind to believe it’s him undoing his pants. “…you’re compliant as all hell.”

Stiles shrugs, even though Derek can’t see it. “I know my place.”

“Jesus Christ,” Derek breathes, pants more like, on the other line. “Do you miss me, baby?”

“Yes,” Stiles says, easy and light.

“Tell me you miss my cock.”

Stiles licks his lips, smiling up at the ceiling. Dirty talk is easy when you’re in the throes of it, like when Derek forced Stiles to use the word clit that first time, and Stiles had just done it, mindlessly. This time, Derek’s not touching him everywhere, all over the place, making him crazy, so he has to laugh a little bit, face going red. “I miss your cock, daddy.”

“Yeah?” All right. He’s definitely jerking off. Stiles doesn’t know whether to be creeped out or turned on, in all honesty. He stays on the line, so evidently, he’s not that opposed to it. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

He puts his hand on his chest, rubbing up and down and closing his eyes. He can hear Derek breathing on the other end and he bites his lip. He can do this. “I want you to tie me up,” he says, voice a little quiet. “In just the right way. So you can still touch me everywhere, but I can’t move. I want you to – to string me up from your ceiling and fuck me like that, and I want you to come on my face –“

“Fuck.”

“I just want you to own me,” he gently palms his erection through his underwear, closing his eyes and rubbing his head against his pillow. “Tell me you do.”

“I do,” Derek says a little breathlessly. “I fucking own every inch of you. You’re mine, you understand me?”

“Yes, all yours.”

Derek makes an odd sort of grunting sound on the other line, paired soon after with an aw, fuck, and one long, drawn out sigh. Stiles blinks as he stares at his ceiling, puffing up his lips. He asks, “did you just get off?”

A little miserably, like he’s ashamed, Derek says, “yeah.”

“That didn’t take long,” he looks down at himself, sees he’s still pretty hard and will probably stay that way for a while. “I’m going to go ahead and guess you’re going to say I can’t get myself off tonight.”

“You can wait till Friday, like a good boy.”

“That’s what I figured,” he sighs, looking at his erection with a frown. How very, very sad. “That was fun, I guess. Over a little soon –“

“Make one more quip about that. I honestly dare you.”

“You keep doing that, you know.”

“Doing what?”

“Like, threatening me as if you’re going to punish me. And then you’re like, oh no, you’re a good boy, you wouldn’t dare!”

Derek laughs on the other line, which isn’t an answer, so Stiles presses.

“What would you actually do to punish me? Like, I wanna know, honestly. Tell me.”

“I don’t think about it that often because it’s not really what I’m all that interested in,” he says, which is fine because Stiles can’t say he loves the prospect of being punished himself either. “If you came when I told you not to, I’d probably just ruin your orgasm or over-stimulate you until it hurt.”

“Uh –“ Stiles licks his lips. The ruined orgasm, he could live without, but the over-stimulation…he’s interested. He almost wants to jerk off right now while Derek can hear it just so he’ll come over and finish the job himself. “What about like…the BMX bike thing. If I actually just bought a BMX bike. You’d….?”

“Take it away, first of all,” which isn’t surprising. “And second of all, it’s really not as interesting as you’d think it would be. If you did something like that, that I told you not to and you did just to be a little shit, it’d like be something along the lines of how your parents would have punished you.”

Stiles reflects back on all the ways his parents tried to corral him when he was growing up, and furrows his brow. “You’d put soap in my mouth?”

Derek, for whatever reason, finds this hilarious. He laughs so loud on the other line it’s distorted through the receiver, and Stiles pulls his own away from his ear and makes a face at it, shaking his head. The things Derek finds funny always astound him. “Of course that was your big punishment growing up.”

“Shut up.”

“No, no soap,” he finally says, calming down from his hysterical fit. “If you bought a BMX with my credit card I’d just have you writing lines for an hour or so. Or I’d put you on chores duty.”

“Oh,” Stiles blinks at the ceiling. That is not what he’d been expecting, not at all. “So you wouldn’t, like…hurt me.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause on the other line. “Why would I hurt you when you’ve told me specifically time and time again you don’t want me to?”

“I –“ he feels like Derek is mad, or upset, so he scrambles to rectify it, clearing his throat and feeling suddenly completely ridiculous in his outfit. “…I just thought – like – punishment was different.”

“I would never physically hurt you,” Derek says, stern. It’s a complete 180 from when he had been laughing only a minute earlier. “No matter what you did. Your word and your limits are more important than my pride or whatever the hell else. You understand me? I don’t ever want to hear you saying anything like that ever again.”

Stiles fiddles with a loose thread on his pillow, feeling like a chastised little kid. “Okay,” he says, and then as an afterthought, “sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s all right. I just want us to be on the same page,” he takes in a deep breath, and when he speaks next, his voice is a lot more light hearted. “Have you been walking around thinking I’d whip you for buying a BMX bike?”

“We keep coming back to the BMX thing. I just want you to know, I have no interest in BMX as a sport.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Listen, baby, I’ve gotta get going. I have some late-night business I have to get done,” and as soon as he says it, Stiles deflates a little bit. “But I’ll see you on Friday?”

“Yeah,” Stiles perks up on marginally at the reminder of their plans for the weekend. “Look, maybe this goes without saying. But we’ll have to be just a little bit vanilla this weekend. Scott’s room is, like, right next to mine.”

“Or, I could just gag you.”

“Bye. Have a good night!” He hangs up, smirking at the phone as the call ends. Then he places it on his chest and stares up at his ceiling. He looks down at his hard-on, not even gone after getting semi-yelled at by Derek over the phone, and thinks about taking a cold shower.

Honestly, and this is the weirdest thing – disobeying Derek never even crosses his mind. Derek says he can’t come until Friday, then he doesn’t come until Friday. Derek says he can’t have a BMX bike, then he won’t have one. Stiles might push Derek to get what he wants, yes, but once Derek’s word is final, it’s final to Stiles.

Huh, he thinks. When the hell did that happen?


	4. The Stiles Box

Stiles opens up his front door on Friday evening to find Derek standing there on his porch with a backpack slung over one shoulder, sunglasses on, audi parked right beside Scott’s shitty Honda in the small driveway. “Welcome!” He caws, pulling Derek in by the collar of his shirt for a quick kiss before shutting the door and pushing him around by his shoulders. “If you wouldn’t mind removing your shoes – we rent, and the carpets ain’t cheap.”

Derek sets his bag down by the door and makes quick work of toeing off his sneakers, lining them up right alongside Stiles’ shitty old converse. He straightens up and looks around himself, peeking into the living room and then down the short hallway. “This is nice,” he says, like he’s surprised about it.

“You were expecting a dilapidated old shack with the roof caving in.”

“I was expecting the house of two recently graduated college kids,” he corrects, padding into the living room to get a better look. He and Scott had cleaned, so it smells like air freshener and everything is put away in its correct place instead of being scattered all over the place. “Huh.”

“Come on,” Stiles takes Derek by his wrist and tugs him into the kitchen, where Scott is standing at the stove poking at some chicken frying in a pan. “This is Scott. I don’t think you’ve formally met yet.”

Scott wipes his hands off on a dish towel and holds one out for Derek to shake, which he does. “Nice to meet you,” he says, all the sincerity in the world. Then he follows it up with, “I will literally kill you if you mess with him. Just putting it out there.”

Seeming entirely unfazed by the threat, Derek just nods his head and smiles pleasantly back, releasing Scott’s hand. “I don’t think you have to worry about that.”

Scott side-eyes him, and then immediately goes back to his work, turning the chicken over with a loud sizzle and pop. “Whatever you say.”

“Come on,” Stiles says, pulling on Derek’s arm again to guide him to the staircase. “I’ll show you my room while dinner gets ready.”

“In about ten minutes,” Scott calls at their retreating backs. Then, as they’re climbing up the stairs, “that’s not enough time for any funny business!”

“You heard the man,” Stiles says over his shoulder as they come up onto the landing. “No funny business.”

“I’ll save the funny business for when he’s asleep.”

Stiles opens up his bedroom door and leads Derek inside, stepping into the center of the room and holding his arms out grandly. “Ta-da.”

As he steps inside, Derek takes a nice long sweep of the place with his eyes, curious and interested. Stiles’ room is all right – it’s not very big, but neither is Scott’s. It’s got a queen sized bed, a dresser overflowing with knick knacks, a book shelf nearly toppling over, and then Stiles’ closet, closed up tight. Mostly because to “clean”, Stiles had just shoved everything in there and hoped for the best.

Derek’s eyes are caught by the farthest wall, right next to the window, and he walks right up to it and cocks his head to the side, scanning over all the clippings Stiles has hanging up there. “Old articles,” he explains, coming up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Derek. “I was editor of my school’s newspaper for two years, and then I’ve done a few think pieces since then. But it’s such shit, as a secretary they won’t even let me pitch anything where I work now.”

Derek is quiet, so Stiles turns to look at him. He finds him actually reading one of the articles Stiles has up, and his heart nearly seizes in his chest at the sight. “Hey, come on,” he laughs, trying to shield Derek’s eyes with his palm. “Don’t read that, it’s embarrassing.”

“I wanna see how good you are,” he counters, but allows Stiles to push him away all the same. “You know, I have a lot of connections. More than you could imagine. I could just get you a writer’s job.”

Stiles toes the carpeting. He knew Derek would say some shit like that at some point, and now that the moment’s actually come, he’s more embarrassed than he thought he’d be. “Uh, no. Thank you.” He bites his lip and looks up to meet Derek’s eyes. “I want to earn it. I want someone to actually think I’m really good. You know?”

He seems marginally impressed by that, but more than that, he also seems pleased. He leans forward and kisses Stiles on the lips, running his fingers through his hair and giving him this really soft look. “I can help you, then.”

“Maybe,” Stiles says, and then clears his throat, feeling all embarrassed and weird. “Anyway, wanna see some stuff?” He waggles his eyebrows as he says it, and then crosses the short distance to the other side of his bedroom, crouching down to get underneath his dresser. He pulls out two very big bags, black with fancy gold lettering on the front, and Derek comes to squat down right next to him.

Stiles opens up the first bag and Derek leans in, and his eyebrows go up as he looks. “Wow,” he says, reaching in and pulling out a pair of satin purple panties. “Lots of colors in this bag.”

“I like colors,” he says, and Derek picks up another pair – green and frilly.

Derek digs through some more, coming up with the most elaborate ones Stiles has found yet – deep pink, with a huge satin bow on the back that has ribbons that go down at least to Stiles’ upper thigh. Derek holds them up and gives Stiles a look. “I like these.”

“I figured you would. Look in this one,” he pulls the other bag over and pulls out a pair of see through mesh thigh highs, and then a pair of glittery white ones, and it’s all bows and satin and lace. “Appropriate use of your credit card?”

“Very appropriate,” Derek says, grabbing at a pair of sweater stockings and running his fingers along them. “Suddenly, the no funny business thing seems hard.”

Stiles laughs, and then he digs into his back pocket to produce his wallet. He pulls the American Express out and holds it in the air for Derek to take back, but Derek just pushes Stiles’ hand away and gives him a big smile. “You’re my good boy. Keep it, use it when you want.”

Pleased beyond all belief, Stiles doesn’t have to be asked twice. He tucks it into his wallet and gives Derek a kiss, smiling all dumb at him. “Thank you, daddy. I’m glad you like what I got. Some day you should come with me, and you can pick stuff.”

“I’d like that.” They lean in close to each other, kiss some more, and then Scott is caterwauling at them to come down and get it.

Go down and get it they do, sitting around the kitchen table they bought at a flea market in mismatched chairs. They drink beer out the bottle and eat the chicken with their hands, and Stiles has to say, it’s probably one of the most Twilight Zoney moments of his life to see Derek Hale sitting there. He’s in a t-shirt that Stiles knows costs more than the entire table set combined, an immaculate pair of jeans, and he’s eating fried chicken and drinking a Budweiser in a flowery white chair that might have once belonged in a teenage girl’s bedroom.

Out of place as he may look, he pulls it off pretty effortlessly. He acts like this is normal, makes decent conversation with Scott, and doesn’t turn his nose up at the way the two of them live at all. He’s just a guy, for the moment.

“Okay,” Stiles says, after the plates have been cleared and they’re all on their third beer, “this is one of the easiest games in the world to play. Everyone puts a dollar into the pot.” To demonstrate, he and Scott both toss a single dollar bill into the middle of the table, and Derek follows suit. It’s incredible to Stiles that Derek even has dollar bills on his person at any given time, but he throws it out there like it’s no big deal. “And then you roll the dice. You can play with any series of numbers you can think of, but we usually do four-five-six.” He rolls the dice, throws them down on the table, and peers over them. He takes a four out and sets it aside, and then rolls again. He gets nothing, rolls again, and nothing again. “Then we keep going, putting a dollar into the pot for every full circle, until someone gets four-five-six out of three rolls.”

Derek blinks at the table. “So it’s gambling.”

“For dollars,” Stiles says, like that somehow makes it not gambling. “You lose like, at most, ten dollars a game. Or you win.”

“I have to warn you. I’m a renowned champion of this game,” Scott says, picking up the dice cup and shaking it with fervor.

“He acts like there’s any skill at all to rolling dice,” Stiles says in a stage-whisper to Derek, who raises his eyebrows and takes a long swig of his beer.

“It’s called luck.” He rolls, picks a five out with two fingers and grins. “I don’t think Stiles has won more than fifteen dollars in all the years we’ve been playing.”

“I’ve won at least twenty,” he fires back, taking the cup out of Scott’s hands when he fails to match up.

“Yeah, yeah. You’ll see.”

Twenty minutes later, after the pot kept growing and growing with nothing to show for it, Derek rolls a four-five-six and Scott nearly topples out of his chair. Stiles just sits there watching Derek pulls his arms over the money to drag it over to himself while grinning like an idiot, mouth hanging open. He just won forty dollars for doing absolutely fucking nothing. It’s astounding.

“You really let this rich fuck come into our house and take all our money,” Scott says, practically waving his fist in the air.

“I fucking guess,” Stiles says, turning to Derek with a look of sheer amazement. “So this is where the money comes from. Your gambling addiction.”

Derek shrugs. “I’ve always been pretty lucky.”

“Yeah, what do you actually do?” Scott demands, watching with a hint of utter hatred as Derek piles all the money up into something manageable to slide into his wallet alongside a handful of fifty dollar bills.

Derek takes a second to focus on the money, as if giving himself some time to think of something to say. When he does speak, he doesn’t look either of them in the eye. “Something way too uninteresting to bore you two with. Another game?”

“Fuck no,” Scott snaps, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re a bad luck charm. I’m broke.”

“You cleaned us out,” Stiles says, and Derek tips his head with a smile.

Upstairs in Stiles’ bedroom, Derek looks even more bizarre. It’s been a long time since Stiles has had someone in his bedroom with him, and he’s never had anyone else in this specific room, not since he and Scott moved in. So Derek sticks out like a sore thumb among all of Stiles’ usual suspects, like he doesn’t quite fit in with the décor.

He sits on the edge of the bed and hugs Derek around his middle as soon as he’s close enough, pressing his cheek against his chest. “Thanks for coming,” he says, voice a little muffled. “I know it’s not as glamorous as staying at your place, but –“

“I had a good time,” Derek cuts Stiles off before the rest of the sentence can gain any real steam. “It’s nice to do something normal.”

Stiles doesn’t think that he knows what Derek means by the term normal, so he just hugs Derek a little tighter and then looks up at his face from all the way down below. “You’re a good boyfriend.” He pulls away, leaning back on his palms in the bedding, raising his eyebrows. “Now, I believe someone owes me an orgasm.”

Derek leans down to where his bag is sitting on the floor, unzipping it to reveal a small pile of red rope. He holds it up in the air, giving Stiles a single eyebrow raise. “Is that right?”

***

Cheek pressed against his own pillow, Stiles sighs and wiggles a bit, jiggling the bed as he does so. Derek ties the final knot, and Stiles is only sure of that because he pulls on it a bit, as if testing its strength. It doesn’t come loose, and Stiles shifts his fingers a little, the only part of his arms he can really move. The ropes come around his front, dipping in a bit of a V down his back where the knot leads down into two distinct loops that Derek tightened to hold both of his arms together right near his wrists, stacked on top of one another. It’s impossible for Stiles to even think about trying to wiggle his way out of it, let alone actually give it a shot, so he just lies there and waits for Derek to do something.  
“Doing okay?” Derek asks, patting him gently on the head. Stiles looks over his shoulder and nods, licking his lips. “Too tight?”

“No,” he says, and wiggles some more. He can’t really see what the ropes look like, but they feel a little intricate, and it took Derek about fifteen minutes to put it all together. That was fifteen minutes of him silently working and Stiles only not speaking because he wasn’t sure if he should, so Stiles is a little antsy and even more wound up.

It’s a blessed thing, then, that Derek hooks his fingers into the loops of Stiles’ jeans and pats him on his bare lower back a couple of times. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Derek makes easy work of flipping Stiles over onto his back by his hips, and it’s moderately uncomfortable to lay back on his arms when they’re all bound up like that. It’s not terrible, and it’ll likely be easy to ignore once things get started, so he tries to get used to it for the time being. Derek undoes the button on Stiles’ jeans and tugs them off in one fell swoop, shoving them off the edge of the bed and then taking a second to just look Stiles over, from head to toe, before settling back on the real point of interest.

“I like these,” he says, running his fingers along the front of Stiles’ underwear, barely scraping the length of his erection in a way that has Stiles shivering. “I like these quite a bit.”

Stiles figured he would, which is why he wore them tonight. They’re black and almost entirely see-through, the lace design so minimal it’s more of a very light mesh than anything else, with a frilly trim around the elastic waist and a big bow that sits very appropriately on top of the head of Stiles’ cock. The thing that Stiles had noted first about them when he put them on is that it looks like his dick is wearing a bow tie, which was funny enough to him that he laughed about it in the mirror.

The second thing he noticed is that they leave absolutely nothing up to the imagination.

“You don’t usually wear black,” Derek says, looking up to meet Stiles’ eyes.

“Well,” is all he can think to say, which isn’t surprising, considering that Derek’s fingers are still tracing up and down his length.

“I think they could use a little something more. Don’t you?”

Stiles doesn’t answer that, and doesn’t have to. Derek climbs off the bed and Stiles stares at the ceiling, legs still open in invitation for whenever Derek decides to pay him any attention. He hears rustling, which he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt to be Derek picking through one of the bags of his new things, and within thirty seconds, Derek is back on the bed with him, holding something in his hands. Stiles has to crane his neck a bit to see what it is, and he’s not shocked at what Derek has picked.

Long black stockings with little white bows at the tops.

He takes the time to slide each one up to Stiles’ thigh, adjusting the bows so they sit just right, and it’s so bizarrely sexy and intimate that Stiles gets harder, just feeling Derek’s hand touching him so softly and reverently. He runs his hands up and down the stockings once they’re on, and Stiles swallows and closes his eyes, just melting into the touch. “There,” Derek says, and Stiles can’t even fidget his fingers anymore since he’s on his back. He wants to, though, just from having Derek trace his eyes up and down Stiles’ body like this. “You look so perfect. Bound and dressed up.”

Stiles blushes, pulling a bit at his ropes just to feel them burn against his skin.

“Let’s get started,” Derek shifts, moving down the bed until he’s perched right in between Stiles’ legs. He pushes them open wider by the knees, setting them down where he wants them to be. “You’re going to be nice and quiet for me, okay?”

“Okay.” Stiles agrees, voice raspy.

Derek bends down, meeting Stiles’ eyes for as long as he can as he lowers himself to get his face right into Stiles’ crotch. The first long, slow drag of Derek’s tongue along the fabric of his panties sends a feeling so fucking electric through Stiles’ brain that he can’t help but make a small whimper, mouth dropping open. The mesh is just so light. It barely does anything to separate Derek’s tongue and his dick – if anything, it only adds an extra sensation to the entire thing.

Derek does it again, and again, three long stripes that have Stiles shaking. Then, he kitten licks at the head poking out from underneath the bow, flicking his tongue along the slit and swallowing down the precome. He kisses the tip a few times, maybe just to hear Stiles swallow his own moans, and then goes back to licking at the front of Stiles’ underwear.

He does it quickly, too, laving his tongue up and down and up and down, until Stiles’ legs are shaking and he’s actively fighting against his ropes. It’s both too much and not enough at the same time – it feels good, so heavenly fucking good, but it feels like he’s trying to scratch at an impossible itch.

As if he’s reading Stiles’ thoughts, Derek licks once more and then pauses. He rubs at the mess he’s making with his own saliva and watches Stiles squirm, with what one could almost call fascination. He says, “you’re coming like this,” and Stiles just can’t imagine that. He’s so turned on, and he feels so good, but release feels so fucking far away if this is all the stimulation he’s going to get. In testament to this, Derek pokes a finger down around his balls curiously, using his other hand to gently rub at Stiles’ tip. “These are so full they look like they’re going to tear the fabric.”

“Mm,” Stiles says, a bit helplessly. “Please.”

“Please?” Derek asks, teasing. Mocking, almost. “Please, what?”

“Please –“ he tries to thrust upwards, a bit uselessly, legs bending and unbending. He takes a wild and mindless stab in the dark as for what Derek wants him to say, huffing out a desperate, “please lick my clit,” before he can think too much about it.

It must have been just the right thing to say, because Derek bows his head and gets back to it. This time, he uses his tongue to lap at what’s covered by the fabric, and his fingers to rub and caress the tip, creating a sensory experience unlike anything Stiles has ever had down there. It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

He bites his lip and tries his level hardest to stay quiet, as quiet as a mouse, but it’s no use. He keeps letting loose these tiny, helpless mewls, desperate and pathetic and small. He curls his toes into the sheets and wants so badly to reach his hand out and pull on Derek’s hair, but he can’t. There’s so little movement afforded to him right now; his arms behind his back, his legs open for Derek. All he can do is lie there and squirm.

It takes what feels like a very, very long time. Derek licks, and licks, and Stiles comes pretty close to begging for it to either end or for him to just take his dick out from behind the underwear and suck it, please, Jesus, anything – but in the end, Derek manages to pull it off. He strokes Stiles’ head in just the right place and tongues along his most sensitive vein at just the right time, and he feels it happening. “I’m gonna come,” he says, breathless and high pitched up at the ceiling. “I’m – I’m gonna come – oh, my God, yes –“ his body locks up, mouth hanging open on a silent scream, and he comes in stripes across his chest. Derek licks him through the aftershocks, as Stiles’ body slowly loosens and he goes lax with satisfaction at his first orgasm since the last time Derek touched him.

Derek sits up, all the way up on his knees, and actually wipes at his mouth with his forearm. It’s filthy, it really fucking is, but Derek just smiles and looks very pleased at having gotten Stiles off that way, like he accomplished something. “Perfect,” he says somewhat adoringly, playing with the bow on the front of Stiles’ panties. “You come very nicely, has anyone ever told you that?”

Stiles feels all fucked up and come-stupid, so he just blinks and can’t think of anything to say. Derek smiles, like that’s just fine by him, and then he pats the inside of Stiles’ thigh with two fingers. He opens up his jeans, pulling down the zipper to reveal a giant bulge in his black briefs that Stiles is supposed to look at. “Look what you did,” he says, and Stiles stares. For whatever reason, since the start of this entire scene, he’s been nearly silent. It’s unlike him, and he doesn’t know if Derek is noticing or if he’s writing it off for whatever reason. He should have a witty comeback, but he just…doesn’t.

“C’mon.” Derek takes Stiles by his shoulders and helps him sit up, taking pressure off of his bound arms and hands. It feels good to be off of them, but Stiles hadn’t noticed how irritated they were until this exact moment. “Off the bed. On your knees, come on, baby.”

Stiles does as he’s asked. He scooches across the bed with no hands to help him, putting his feet on the ground before standing, and then quickly kneeling down right in front of where Derek is settling himself down. Stiles licks his lips, hunkering down a bit as Derek pulls his dick entirely out of his pants and strokes it a few times, pulling the foreskin back to reveal the pre-come shiny head. “Take care of what you started.”

That’s all the direction that Stiles really needs. He leans forward and sucks the head into his mouth, looking up from underneath his lashes to meet Derek’s eyes. He bobs his head up and down, again wishing he had the use of his hands to stroke what he can’t suck down just yet, while Derek grunts and runs his fingers through Stiles’ hair again and again. “That’s a good boy,” Derek murmurs, as Stiles works at taking more in. He gets to the halfway point and doesn’t gag, so he tries going deeper. “Don’t push yourself.”

Stiles makes a muffled noise of disagreement while Derek is still in his mouth, and it must send pretty nice vibrations around Derek’s sensitive skin, because he jerks a bit and groans. He wants to say that he’s taken bigger cocks than this before just to see what Derek’s reaction would be – likely not a very good one – but he can’t. So he settles for giving Derek the eyes and running his tongue along the underside, pulling off with a pop to lick at the head.

He goes back down on him, this time with the clear intent to get him off. He sucks and sucks, flicking his tongue and swirling his mouth and putting enough effort into it his jaw aches. Derek pets him, nearly obsessively. It’s like he knows he has to be quiet too and his only outlet is stroking Stiles’ hair, or he just wants Stiles to know so bad how good he’s making Derek feel, but either way, Stiles doesn’t mind it.

He even less minds it when he feels Derek get close and the fingers grip. They pull, pushing his head off of Derek’s dick so he’s wide-mouthed and wet-lipped. Derek grips his own cock in his other hand, thrusting Stiles’ head back so his neck and face are entirely exposed, as he jerks himself through his orgasm.

Derek comes, hot and fast on Stiles’ face and throat, and Stiles just sits there and barely flinches as it hits his skin. Derek pants, even as the last drop hits Stiles right near the eye, stroking with that wet slapping sound that Stiles is all too familiar with.

Finally, he’s done, and he stops, still not letting go of Stiles’ hair. He slumps a bit, loosely holding his softening cock in his hand, while Stiles sits patiently. He licks a bit of Derek’s come off his lips because it’s irritating him, and Derek watches with hooded, post-orgasm eyes. “You are such a good boy,” he says, finally letting go of Stiles’ hair to stroke at it instead, all fond and sincere. “You did so well. You’re so perfect. You look so fucking good right now.” Derek fishes around in his pocket without taking his eyes off of Stiles, producing his phone. He holds it up so Stiles can see it, and Stiles eyeballs it with interest. “Can I take a picture?”

Stiles considers that. It’s not like he hasn’t already sent Derek several pretty racy pictures before, and really, this one is only slightly different than the other ones.

“Just for me,” he continues, as if Stiles would ever be worried that Derek would show it to somebody else. “Just for daddy to have, okay?”

“Okay,” Stiles says. His voice sounds very small and lost in his own ears, but he just blinks and watches as Derek lifts his phone and angles it to take the picture. He stares at the screen even after he lowers it, observing the image closely like he can’t believe he really has it. Then, he holds it out to Stiles, putting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

“Look at you,” he says, almost kindly. “You’re so pretty.”

The picture is insane for Stiles to look at. It almost doesn’t even look like him, but it is, in that bizarre way that pictures sometimes are. He’s got his own come on his stomach and chest, and Derek’s come all over his face, and he’s in lace panties and thigh high stockings, and his lips are all chapped and shiny from cock and his eyes are a bit red. He looks like someone’s fucking porn twink. It’s the hottest picture he’s ever seen in his life.

“Okay,” Derek says, taking the phone away and sliding off the bed. He’s on Stiles’ level now, down on his knees, and he looks at him with a serene expression. “Let’s get you cleaned up, and out of those ropes, and hydrated. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles rasps, leaning into Derek’s touch.

Derek produces a tissue from somewhere Stiles doesn’t notice, wiping with short, gentle strokes at the mess on Stiles’ face. He cleans around Stiles’ eye, because, yeah, Derek came on his fucking eye, and then down around his neck, his cheeks, and a bit by his ear. He takes another tissue and swipes at Stiles’ chest, throwing it away when he’s finished. “There. All good. It shouldn’t take me too long to get the ropes undone, okay? You just sit tight. I’m right here.”

“Mmmhmm,” Stiles says. He feels exhausted, for some reason, like he’s just run a marathon, when all he did was come and suck Derek off. His eyes actually start to drift closed, but he keeps them open if only because he doesn’t want to fall asleep before he gets to cuddle with Derek.

Derek is behind him, undoing the knots. As it turns out, undoing them takes a lot less time than doing them does, which feels ironic to him, somehow. He undoes them, and then unravels the ropes so they fall gracelessly to the floor around their feet. Stiles moves to just rip his arms out from behind his back and wave them around just because he can, but Derek grabs his wrists to stop him.

“Slow,” he says, intensely. “Slow, slow, slow.” With gentle pushes, he moves Stiles’ arms himself – and Stiles gets what Derek had meant. His arms are sore, like the way it is when you sleep in a weird position for a while and then try to move and it hurts, for some reason. Stiles hurts, now, wincing as Derek pushes his arms gently to his sides. He rotates his wrists a bit, frowning when it feels all weird and bruised, and Derek sits right behind him and watches the entire thing like a hawk. He’s likely checking every inch of him for injury – but probably, he’s just gonna have a couple of bruises in the morning.

“Let’s sit up,” he suggests, standing up himself and hefting Stiles up by his underarms. Stiles winds up sitting on the edge of the bed, watching Derek while he putters around in Stiles’ dresser before coming up with a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt. He gets Stiles standing up and takes his underwear off for him, citing something about getting them dry cleaned that nearly makes Stiles laugh at the absurdity of it, and then helps Stiles dress into his pants and shirt. “Have some water,” Derek says, pushing a bottle to his lips and watching as Stiles sucks at half the bottle.

Once he’s finished, Derek seems satisfied. “You want to lie down?”

“I think,” Stiles agrees, and so Derek shuffles him back and pulls the covers aside, watching Stiles climb inside and immediately tuck himself underneath, rubbing into his pillow and sighing through his nose. He watches through half-lidded eyes as Derek rids himself of his jeans, leaving himself in just his briefs and his t-shirt. He climbs into bed right next to Stiles, and immediately, his hands are all over him, pulling him as close as physically possible and touching him everywhere.

“That was so great. You’re my best good boy, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, happy in the limelight of praise. He nuzzles into Derek’s neck and huffs a bit, hugging him tightly and feeling warm and safe. Some time passes, and Stiles could fall asleep but doesn’t want to. The exhaustion is there, but Derek stays awake stroking his fingers up and down Stiles’ arm and if Derek is awake, then Stiles wants to be awake, too.

After what could be half an hour or just two minutes, Derek clears his throat. “You were very quiet,” he remarks in a low voice. He’s talking more normally than before, less like he’s talking Stiles through something and more like he’s just talking. “You’re not usually so quiet.”

“I was wondering about that,” Stiles says back sleepily. “I don’t know. I guess I just – didn’t feel like talking much. I got really out of my head for a minute, there. I just wanted to…” he pauses, trying to think of the right words. “I just wanted to do what you wanted me to.”

Derek kisses him on the forehead. “If you want to talk and be mouthy, that’s fine. If you want to be quiet sometimes, that’s fine too. Whatever you feel like. I can work with either.”

“I just feel really comfortable with you is what it is. I just – I trust you. I trust you a lot.”

Derek goes quiet for a long time. It’s long enough that Stiles thinks he’s going to sleep, so he curls up against Derek’s chest and closes his eyes, ignoring the fact that his string lights are still on above their heads. He’s just starting to peter out into pre-sleep, mind going blank as he listens to the steady thump-thump of Derek’s heart.

Startling him into opening up his eyes and frowning, Derek shifts and takes in a deep breath. “Baby, I wanna tell you something.”

Looking up at him with a bit of a squint against the dim lights still on, Stiles blinks and feels grouchy.

Reiterating what he’d already said, Derek goes on. “I need to tell you something. It’s – it’s uh…” he runs his hand over his forehead and meets Stiles’ eyes head on. He looks almost upset, or nervous, or both at once, and Stiles cocks his head to the side and waits for him to elaborate. Seconds pass. Stiles watches Derek run his hands through his hair, shifting his eyes over to Stiles again and again. It’s almost as if Derek doesn’t want to have to look Stiles in the eyes as he says whatever it is he has to say.

He looks up, focuses his eyes on the velvet choker around Stiles’ neck. He fixates on it for just a second, reaching out to gently run his fingers along the fabric. Stiles looks down and watches, confused and sleepy, and when he looks back up, Derek is staring at his hands. Or at the wall. Or at anything but Stiles.

He clears his throat. “When I was sixteen, I met this girl and she was really…I thought she was really amazing. I really loved her. I think I did. Which is weird to think about now, but sometimes it keeps me sane if I remind myself that I genuinely did, and it’s almost like an explanation,” he rambles, and Stiles listens intently, furrowing his brow. “But she wasn’t who I thought she was. It’s a long story, or maybe it isn’t. But she lied to me and tricked me into loving her and she burned my house down with my family still inside it.”

Stiles gasps. He reaches out and grabs at Derek’s wrist without even thinking about it, squeezing tight and holding on for dear life.

“It was the worst day of my life. Followed by the worst week of my life, and then month, and then year, and then two years, until it started feeling…normal.” He looks up at the ceiling and sighs through his nose. “I don’t know what else to say about that. I just wanted you to know. And I don’t want to talk about it. Now or ever.” He takes Stiles’ hand off his wrist and puts it in his hand instead, squeezing. “You just need to know that about me.”

Derek said he didn’t want to talk about it. And he doesn’t want to elaborate, or be asked questions, or be demanded specifics. He just wanted Stiles to know, and Stiles has so many, many questions and he wants to know if Derek has any family left at all and if he’s lonely and if Stiles can do anything – but Derek said he didn’t want to talk about it, and Stiles respects that. He says, “okay,” and leans his head back on Derek’s chest.

“Okay,” Derek repeats, a little breathlessly.

“That’s your deep dark secret,” Stiles murmurs into his skin, trying to lighten the mood. But instead of accomplishing that at all, Derek goes deathly silent for a moment, that way he’s so fond of doing.

He says, “that’s the one,” in a strange tone of voice that Stiles can’t read. It sounds like a lie, but Stiles is already half asleep.

***

Daddy, 1:23 AM : Awake?  
Me, 1:25 AM : Yes. You wanna phone sex or something? I’m tired tbh  
Daddy, 1:26 AM : It’s 1 am, of course you’re tired. What are you doing awake?  
Me, 1:28 AM : Too much coffee today. Now I’m wired and exhausted at the same time.  
Daddy, 1:29 AM : I was just looking through my credit card statements.  
Daddy, 1:30 AM : Did you buy fifty dollars worth of groceries with my card?  
Me, 1:31 AM : Uh…..yeah??????? Is that a problem?  
Daddy, 1:32 AM ; Of course not.  
Me, 1:33 AM : And, also, it’s creepy that you do that.  
Daddy, 1:34 AM : It’s my money, baby. I’ll check up on it if I want to.  
Me, 1:35 AM : All right. Touche’.  
Daddy, 1:36 AM : Of course it’s not a problem for you to buy groceries with my money. But are you that pressed for cash, you need to use my card to buy food?  
Me, 1:37 AM : Weelllll lmfao.  
Stiles palms his forehead and wants to throw his phone out the window, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment. He has money problems like any kid his age who doesn’t have rich parents does – and he doesn’t think that Derek will understand that concept at all whatsoever. Something tells him that his family was wealthy, he inherited all their money on top of insurance from the fire, and he’s never had to struggle or scrounge a day in his life. It’s humiliating in some way for Derek to know that Stiles is having a hard time, even though it’s really not that big of a deal. He’s used to it, anyway.

Me, 1:40 AM : Student loan payments, saving up for a car, bills, work expenses, and the fact that I make barely a living wage as a secretary – it adds up.  
Me, 1:40 AM : I needed food, I was pressed, so I used your card. It’s not the hugest deal.  
Me, 1:41 AM : I’ve couch scrounged for change to get a box of macaroni and cheese before, dude. It’s called how the rest of the world lives, you know?  
Daddy, 1:45 AM : I exist, you know.  
Daddy, 1:45 AM : I know we’ve never explicitly talked about it, but I thought it went without saying. You can just straight up ask me for money.  
Daddy, 1:46 AM : Chances are, I’ll say yes.  
Me, 1:48 AM : Okay, but there’s asking you for money for something like lingerie and there’s asking you for money for FOOD. It’s embarrassing.  
Daddy, 1:49 AM : I don’t see the difference.  
Me, 1:53 AM : It’s EMBARRASSING, what about that is so hard to understand? Like, yeah, otherwise I would’ve gone to my dad which is just as humiliating as this is I guess  
Me, 1:54 AM : I can’t believe you’d look at that and then accost me about it like this  
Me, 1:54 AM : Sorry I’m not, like, some financial wizard like you apparently are and I don’t manage my money very well and I spend all my food money on rent instead  
Daddy, 1:55 AM : You’re upset.  
Me, 1:57 AM : Yeah I’m fucking upset, you asshole.  
Me, 1:57 AM : I know we have this dynamic where you have money and I don’t, but it’d be nice if you didn’t, like, condescend down upon me about it  
Daddy, 1:58 AM : Holy shit, that isn’t even close to how I meant anything I said. Are we really going to argue about this?  
Me, 2:00 AM : No, because I’m done with this. I’m turning my phone off. You can be a real fucking silver spoon asshole.

Stiles turns his phone face down and hurrumphs, pushing it onto his bedside table and crossing his arms over his chest, staring up at his ceiling in the dark of his bedroom. He blinks, feels tears welling up in his eyes, but he won’t cry.

He literally bought enough food to last him a week at best, that’s all. Which is just very very sad, when he thinks about it that way, because Jesus, he couldn’t even afford to just get it himself. It’s not really his fault – but then, it is. He could’ve been more responsible.

But responsible just isn’t something he’s particularly good at. And now Derek knows that, because he was an idiot and used Derek’s card to buy food, and now Derek thinks Stiles is so destitute he can’t even afford Kraft. Which isn’t strictly true; he’s almost that destitute, but not quite. It’s just hard. It’s been hard. He’s sad because he has a shit job and it doesn’t pay him enough and the only reason he has it is to try and get a leg up, but it’s gotten him nowhere, and he’s broke, and Scott is doing better than him, and most people he graduated with are too, and Derek is just –

Really, Stiles was projecting everything onto him. It was wrong of him to get angry at Derek like that, but he’s not about to admit it. No. He’ll be stubborn for as long as he can take it.

***

Stiles ditches pretty much every single one of Derek’s following phone calls. He calls a couple of times that night and then gives it up, probably figuring that Stiles just wants some time to cool down. Then, he calls right around the time he knows Stiles is getting up and ready for work. Then, he calls when Stiles is at the office on his lunch break. And again on his train ride home. He just jabs his finger on the ignore button every single time, sighing through his nose and feeling a little ridiculous.  
But half the reason he’s trying to avoid talking to Derek after that text argument is because he knows it’s ridiculous. And he knows Derek is going to bite his head off about it. Now, at this point, he’s just avoiding the inevitable. There are texts that come in that Stiles doesn’t even read the first sentence of before getting rid of the notification on his lock screen and just leaving it there to rot in their text thread.

When he’s at home eating dinner with Scott on the couch, it buzzes on the coffee table. Both Stiles and Scott, because he’s nosy as shit, lean over to see Daddy on the screen with all the little pink heart emojis. Scott raises his eyebrows when Stiles hits ignore again, poking back around in his Lucky Charms. He says, “you guys fighting?”

And Stiles says, “I guess so.” It’s more like, Stiles is being petulant and stubborn and Derek just wants to talk to him, for the moment.

Stiles is sitting at the kitchen table crunching some numbers with his calculator and a legal pad, pen hanging out of his mouth. He calculates how much his next pay check will be, subtracts rent, subtracts general cost of living, subtracts his phone bill, and comes out with a number that just makes him sad. It’s past eleven o’clock at night, and Stiles has to get up at seven the next morning and he’s dog-tired, but he just sits there at his table staring at the numbers and huffing.

He’s the one who wanted to be a journalism major, after all.

There are three hard knocks on his front door, startling him with how loud and close they are. He turns his head and stares at the door for a moment, biting his lip. There’s a part of him that’s almost entirely sure that’s Derek, another part of him that’s almost entirely sure that Derek isn’t very pleased with him, and another part that reminds him that it’s a Wednesday night and Derek never has any time to do shit like randomly show up at Stiles’ house at 11:30 on Wednesdays. The specifics of what he does with his life during the week are still fuzzy, but Stiles has taken the hint that it’s busy and stressful. After all, you don’t get filthy rich sitting on your ass all day.

Stiles twiddles his fingers as he stands up and pads across the carpet into the foyer. He peeks through the peephole, sees Derek standing there, and pulls away for a moment, biting his lip. He’s, honest to God, a little bit terrified. It’s a lot like when he’d get in trouble at school and he’d get sent home and then have to sit there and wait for his dad to get off shift to come home and yell at him about it.

All the same, he unlatches the door and pulls it open, revealing Derek is all his unblurry glory, and yeah. He pretty much just looks pissed. Without saying a word, he walks into the house and takes Stiles by the arm, not roughly at least, and starts leading him off towards the table Stiles had just been sitting at.

He sits Stiles down, but he doesn’t sit down himself. He leans over the table, gives Stiles the most stern, serious look he’s ever seen on a human face before, and Stiles swallows nervously. He thinks about opening his mouth and explaining, or apologizing, but he knows that right now, it really wouldn’t do him any good.

Derek puts both hands on the edge of the table and sort of leans over it, towering over Stiles in a somewhat menacing way, and then it begins. “I am not some possessive, obsessive control freak. I don’t need to be fucking calling you twenty times a day. That’s crazy. But when my boyfriend decides to get angry with me for next to no fucking reason and then vanish without a trace, what else am I supposed to do? You think I liked having to sit there a dozen times getting sent straight to your voicemail? I had better things I could have been doing.”

Stiles twiddles his fingers and looks at his lap, and says nothing.

“I don’t have time for fucking mindgames. You are a fucking brat. I don’t even understand what you’re angry with me about, I don’t even get what the god damn issue was! You can be upset with me about anything you want to be, but at the bare minimum, can you explain it? But ignoring my phone calls just –“ he shakes his head, knocks his fist on the top of the table as if getting Stiles’ attention. Stiles looks up and meets his eyes, feeling a lot like a chastised little kid. “…that’s not an option. You understand me?”

Seeing as how this is a lecture by any other name, Stiles figures he needs to be deferent. He says, “yes, sir,” in a low voice, and Derek taps his fingers on the tabletop.

“You can be mad at me all you want,” his voice is gentler this time, and he sort of pulls back from looming over Stiles like that, standing up normally and walking around the table to stand closer to where Stiles is. “But when you’re angry with me, I expect you to explain to me exactly why, what I did wrong, what you’re feeling, and if you just don’t want to talk to me for a while, tell me that. Don’t just go fucking nuts over text and freak out and then disappear. That’s high school shit.” He bends down to crouch right next to where Stiles is sitting to get down on his level, and Stiles nods his head, his neck bowed as he listens.

“And second of all, the money thing? Baby. Of course I was going to ask you about why the credit card I gave you to buy yourself nice things was showing a charge from Albertson’s grocery store. I gave that to you so you could buy shoes and things like that.”

“I know, but –“

Derek holds his finger up. “I’m not done,” he says, and Stiles shuts his mouth and bites his tongue. “That card is for spur of the moment spending. You want a pair of hundred dollar pants, you can just get them without having to come and ask me for money. But other things, like when you need money, you come and you ask me directly.”

“But it’s –“

“It’s not embarrassing,” Derek corrects before Stiles can even say it, shaking his head. “You agreed to this relationship. You said you wanted a sugar daddy. Now you’re too chicken to ask me for money? You could come up to me and hold your hand out and say money, please with no explanation and I’d give you a fifty dollar bill.”

Stiles twiddles his fingers some more and doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He knows that everything that Derek’s saying is true, and he knows he mostly doesn’t even have a leg to stand on and it’s not an argument anymore, it’s Stiles being lectured.

“There’s two things I want you to take away from this, okay?” Derek rubs his hand up and down Stiles’ thigh once, comforting and sure. “Number one, don’t ignore my phone calls. Don’t make me feel like an insane asshole calling you and calling you like that. Understand?”

“Yes,” Stiles says.

“Number two, I expect you to come to me for money, period, no excuses. It’s half of what I’m here for. All right? Are we on the same page now?”

“Yes,” he repeats, and then he turns and looks Derek right in the eyes, so he’ll know that Stiles means it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Derek tells him, surging upwards to wrap Stiles up in a big bear hug. Derek is actually pretty good at hugs, honestly – he’s all big and warm and strong and he smells nice and he squeezes nice and tight. “You’re a good boy.”

Stiles puts his chin on Derek’s shoulder and chuffs. “You called me a fucking brat not ten minutes ago.”

“You can be that, too,” Derek says, and when he pulls away, he’s got a light smile on his face. “Anyway, I’ve really gotta get back to work…” he trails off, standing up to his full height and pulling his phone out of his pocket as if he’s checking to see if he’s had any missed calls. From the brief glance that Stiles gets at the screen, he sees several missed calls. Derek swears under his breath.

“You have to get back to work at nearly midnight?” He asks, and when Derek looks at him, Stiles really sees him for the first time since he came here – instead of just seeing an amorphous blob of angry and dominant. He looks Derek up and down, and sees that he’s got on dark pants and a black button down, sleeves rolled up to the elbows as usual, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He looks absolutely worn down and exhausted. Stiles isn’t arrogant enough to think that that’s all because Stiles wasn’t answering his calls – he looks physically drained, like he’s been running a marathon all day.

Stiles never sees Derek during the week, and now he guesses he pretty much knows why.

“There’s no rest for the wicked, I guess,” he jokes, but it falls flat, and he runs his hand through his hair and pulls his wallet out of his pocket. He pulls some money out, which is enough of a distraction for Stiles to not ask anymore questions.

He does that. As soon as Stiles or anybody else questions him about what it is he does, he just deflects at the earliest possible convenience. Even now, Stiles is too distracted by the hundred dollar bills Derek sets down on the table to really notice that Derek has evaded anything.

It’s five hundred crisp bills, and Stiles looks up at him, about to protest. “This help with any of this number nonsense you have going on here?” Derek asks, waving his hand at Stiles’ messy math on his legal pad. He blushes, and slowly takes the money off the table and slips it into his pocket.

“Yes,” he admits in a low, still embarrassed voice. “Thank you, daddy.”

“You’re welcome. I have to go.” He bends down and kisses Stiles on the forehead, pulling back and patting him on the head a few times. “I’ll see you on Friday.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Do me a favor?” He asks as he’s walking towards the front door, looking over his shoulder. “Bring all the stuff you have, and you know what I mean. I just want to look through it.”

With that, he opens and closes the door behind him, leaving Stiles sitting there alone with five hundred extra dollars in his pocket. Stiles blinks across his kitchen and rubs his jaw, a little shellshocked from getting yelled at still, but then feeling all warm from Derek being gentle with him at the end of it.

He stares at the money some more, biting his lip. He hasn’t been taking as much advantage of Derek as other people in his position would, it’s true. Other people would likely have a yacht and several thousand dollars worth of diamonds, by now, and Stiles honestly always thought that he was materialistic.

As it turns out, he just might be more interested in the romance and the sex than he ever could be in the money. Go figure.

***

Stiles brings all his sexy clothes in a backpack and Derek has him dumping it all out on his bedroom floor for him to take a look at. Why he’s so interested to see it all laid out is beyond Stiles’ imagination, but all the same, he paws through it all and looks at it a bit critically. He starts actually separating stuff into piles by color, lining it all up while Stiles sits cross legged beside him, watching.  
“What’re you looking for?” Stiles asks, once all the stuff has been sorted and Derek is just sort of looking at all of it.

“You don’t have nearly as much as I thought you did,” he says, which makes Stiles raise his eyebrows. He looks across his clothes and furrows his brow – there’s a pile for almost every color under the rainbow, including white and black, and yeah a couple of piles only have one or two things in them, but still. Whenever Stiles has taken the time to look through his ridiculous kink shit he’s been floored by how weird and crazy he is for buying this much of it. He’s got four pairs of pink ladies’ underwear for god’s sake – how many dudes can say the same?

“Have you ever thought about buying the stuff that’s made specifically for men?”

“Nope,” he says, popping his lips on the p. “There’s not as much of a selection and it fits too well.”

“It fits too well,” Derek repeats, a smile in his voice.

“I like the way the girls stuff fits. Like, it doesn’t. I don’t know.” He shrugs, rubbing at his jaw. “I’m a freak and I like women’s underwear.”

Derek laughs and runs his hand along the green pile, where only two pairs of underwear sit. He examines it all a bit more critically, cocking his head to the side. Stiles has never in his life seen a human person observe lace underwear with such intensity. “You need more,” he says, and Stiles just blinks at him, flabbergasted.

“There’s only so many days in a week, you know. Half of this stuff you haven’t even seen on me.”

Ignoring that, Derek just says, “I’ll take you shopping next week.” And then Stiles forgets what he was going to say on the matter, because shopping. He’s never been shopping with Derek yet, and he’s a little thrilled at the prospect of it, honestly. The entire point of the trip will likely be to hound Victoria’s Secret and other women’s stores for more of their weirdo sex shit, but Stiles is wondering what the odds are of wheedling a couple new outfits out of him, too.

Probably very high. Stiles bites his thumb and nods his agreement. “Okay. Thank you, daddy.”

Derek gathers all of Stiles’ things back up into a pile and stuffs them by the handful into Stiles’ backpack. He fishes one particular pair out of the mounds and lays it down flat on the floor right in between where he and Stiles are sitting. “Wear these tonight.”

Stiles smirks. “You don’t wanna know what I already have on? Maybe I picked it out special.”

That seems to give Derek some pause. He rakes his eyes up and down Stiles’ jeans, like he could somehow see through them if he just stared hard enough, and very slowly meets Stiles’ eyes again. “There can be an afternoon and a tonight, you know.”

“Twice in one day,” Stiles shakes his head from side to side. “You’re a real fucking nasty freak, you know?”

“Sure,” Derek nods, zipping up Stiles’ bag and setting it aside. He picks the ones he set out up and stands to put them down on top of his dresser, where they’ll likely wait until Derek decides he wants to see Stiles in them. Stiles leans back on his palms and gives Derek a nice long look, jiggling one of his legs up and down while he smiles a bit mischievously and cocks his head to the side.

“I showed you mine. You show me yours.”

Derek looks at him for a second, like he doesn’t get it.

“Your weird kink stuff,” Stiles pushes, reaching out his leg to prod at Derek with his foot. “I wanna see it all.”

“Do you, now?”

“Yup.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, which makes Derek laugh, but Stiles is honestly dead serious. He knows that Derek has to have a lot of stuff, but every time he uses something on Stiles he just pulls it seemingly out of nowhere and Stiles doesn’t have time to think about where it came from, which pile of crap it originated from. “I know you’ve got like, a red room of pain, or something –“

“I don’t have –“ Derek huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose even as a baffled smile crosses his face. “I don’t have a red room of pain. It’s just – here. Jesus Christ.” He crosses the room over to his bed, crouching down next to it, and Stiles is immediately climbing up on his hands and feet to crab walk after him, excitement bubbling up in his stomach. Right as Stiles is coming up beside him, Derek pulls out two long plastic containers with green lids. Even with the frosted tint of them, Stiles can tell what’s inside for the most part.

“You’ve got Rubbermaid boxes of pain.”

“I swear to God…” Derek mutters, and then he pulls the top off of one to reveal its contents in all their glory. Stiles is immediately peering over his shoulder to get a better look, nearly shoving Derek out of his way.

The first thing Stiles sees is rope. Lots and lots of rope. Which makes sense – the man has practically never had sex with Stiles without tying Stiles up in some way, which is fine by him. Ropes are sort of Stiles’ thing, anyway. He reaches out and paws them aside, Derek moving out of his way to afford him more space to poke around, and comes across some highly interesting material that has Stiles pausing and blinking in surprise. “Oh, mama,” he says in a low voice, and Derek stares at the side of his face as if trying to gauge his reaction.

A man with this much money and this much of an interest in dominating and controlling people of course would have some preettttyyyyy interesting shit underneath his bed, but Stiles never gave it much of a thought before. Underneath all the rope, there’s dozens of toys. Like, the usual suspects. Vibrators and dildos and more kinds of lubricant than you could shake a stick at, interspersed with other oddities – like a cock ring and a plaid school girl skirt. Stiles reaches out and grabs at a hot pink dildo, waving it around in the air a bit with a smirk. “Why don’t you use this one on me?”

“It has a remote,” Derek says, and Stiles nearly salivates at the thought. Derek fishes around in the box until he comes up with said remote, presses a button on it, and in his hand, the thing starts vibrating. Stiles jumps, hacking out an immature giggle and dropping it down into the box, where it vibrates the rest of the toys with a loud brrrrrrr sound. Derek turns it off and seems pleased by Stiles’ reaction, setting the remote down in the box beside it.

“Since it matches my underwear for tonight, and all,” he says, and then that’s all he says. Derek tips his head in agreement, and Stiles licks his lips and thinks he can’t hardly wait to see what that things feels like. Probably fucking unbelievable. “What’s in the other box?” He demands, pointing at it where it sits all forlorn and mysterious on the other side of Derek’s body.

There’s a bit of a pause, where Derek meets his eyes and says nothing, and then he carefully pushes the first box aside. He clears his throat. “When we first got together and you told me your limits I separated the stuff out,” he explains, and Stiles listens with a twist to his mouth. “I put some things in the Stiles-safe box,” he pats said box. “And everything else in the other box.”

“Man,” Stiles comments, eyeing the new box a bit warily. “Now you’re really piquing my interest.”

“I don’t have to show you, you know. It might make you uncomfortable or skeeve you out.”

“I can’t not know things,” he says, and Derek gives him an odd look for that statement, but quickly rearranges his face and nods his head. “Just show me. What could possibly be in there?”

Derek huffs and gives him a bit of a look, but he slowly slides the box closer to the both of them. “Since you asked,” he says, and he pops the lid off and leaves it open for Stiles to take a nice long look at.

Stiles leans over his shoulder, stares at all the stuff there with big eyes, and immediately pulls back. “Safe word,” he says, and Derek nods his head like he expected nothing more and nothing less. Stiles won’t even go into details about what’s in the box – he averts his eyes and starts comparing the Stiles box to the non-Stiles box. The Stiles box has lots of fun colors and interesting stuff and looks like BDSM Candyland. The other box…looks like the Dark Box of Doom. “Except…” he reaches out tentatively, placing his fingers only exactly where he wants them to go out of fear for even touching anything else in that box, and plucks out a ball gag. “I’m not totally opposed to being gagged. Just not, like, always.” He sets it gently in the Stiles box and shrugs his shoulders, staring at his nail beds in a bit of embarrassment. “If you set up the right scene, it could be fun.”

“All right.” Derek says, clearing his throat and throwing the top back on the evil box. “But just so you know, I don’t care about not using anything in this box. I don’t care about not doing that kind of stuff with you. I just like being in control,” he scritches behind Stiles’ ear, and Stiles fakes a purr and leans into it playfully, which makes Derek smile. “It doesn’t matter how I accomplish that.”

“Let’s burn the evil box,” Stiles suggests, and Derek gives him a look.

“We’re not burning the evil box. It’s expensive stuff, in there.”

Stiles puts on a Monopoly man voice and mocks Derek with dorky hand gestures, saying, “ohhh, it’s expensive. I live in a penthouse and own six cars, we can’t throw out my weirdo dom kink shit, it’s expensive.”

“Oh, my God.” Derek slides both boxes underneath his bed and ignores Stiles, for the most part, even while Stiles can tell that his lips are curving upwards in a smile he tries to resist. Derek thinks Stiles is funny, even when he pretends that he doesn’t.

“But you admit it’s an evil box,” Stiles points out, raising his eyebrows.

“In your case, yes. It’s an evil box. Come on,” he hefts himself up onto his feet. “We have to get lunch now if you want to come twice today.”

“Can we order meatball subs?” He asks, while Derek disappears over to his dresser to rifle around for the takeout menus. “Chicken parm, maybe. Actually, a fettucine alfredo sounds just right.”

“Make up your mind or I’ll pick for you.” That is a threat if Stiles ever heard one. The shit that Derek picks for himself is sometimes so abhorrent to Stiles that he’d rather chew off his own wrists than eat it; like weirdo sprout salads with nuts in them and tofu rice concoctions. God only knows what he’d give to Stiles if he were given the power.

“Fettucine alfredo,” he blurts out before Derek can say another word. “Please and thank you.”

Derek gives him a look, but he fishes out the menu for the Italian place down the street that delivers and picks up his phone. He peruses the menu himself for a moment, and while he does that, Stiles sits on the floor and picks at his fingernails. “The caprese salad is good, there,” he suggests, and Derek makes a non-committal noise and keeps looking.

Stiles is just about to stand up from the floor to help him pick something before he starves to death, when his eyes catch something lurking on the floor down by Derek’s bedside table. This is interesting enough on its own, because the maid seems to be clean to the point of obsession, and there’s literally never anything left on the floor under her watch. Once, Stiles left a pair of his jeans lying on Derek’s bedroom floor, and ten minutes later he came back to retrieve them only to find them folded neatly on the bed. He never sees the woman, but she lurks this place like a ghoul.

Still, there the object is, and Stiles is curious. He scoots across the carpeting and bends down to get a better look at it, cocking his head to the side and squinting before plucking it up with two fingers. He holds it in his palm, blinks at it. He sits there staring at it for what feels like a long time, and then he turns his head with an incredulous smile and says, “hey. Is this…” he trails off, and he laughs a bit like he nearly can’t believe it even while it’s in his hand.

Derek turns his head away from the menu and his face goes from concerned with food to absolutely and completely blank in the blink of an eye. He sees what Stiles has in his hand and he freezes a bit, not letting any emotion cross his face.

“…is this coke? Like…is this cocaine?”

He wags the small baggy around in the air a bit, waiting for Derek to provide him with an explanation. None comes. Not for seconds on end, and Stiles looks between the item in question and Derek, again and again.

“Do you do cocaine?” He asks, his voice a little tight. He doesn’t know if it would matter, necessarily, because rich people do what rich people do, and cocaine is such a Hollywood rich asshole drug that it wouldn’t be shocking in the strictest sense. But it’s…uncool? In more ways than one.

“No,” Derek says, and that doesn’t sound like a lie. Still, Derek looks like he’s been caught in the fucking act. “It’s – it’s not mine.” He crosses the room, phone still in his hand, and rips the thing out of Stiles’ fingers a bit quickly, stuffing it away into his pocket. Which in and of itself, is suspicious. “It’s Erica’s. She’s got a uh…bit of a problem. I took this from her.”

Stiles stares at him, trying to make heads or tails of that. It would make sense, and it would make sense also why Derek wouldn’t bother to tell Stiles about that because it’s really none of his business if one of Derek’s co-workers is hung up on cocaine, but still. There seems, more and more especially lately, like there’s something that Derek just isn’t telling him. Stiles can’t put his finger on what it is, can’t see how any of the things he’s noticed as odd add up to mean any one thing, so more often than not, he just lets it go.

“I’ll order the food,” he says, and then he’s padding away on the carpeting and putting the phone to his ear, looking over his shoulder only once with no expression on his face. Stiles sits on the floor a bit longer and bites his lip, staring at his hand where the stuff had been only seconds earlier. It’s not that he thinks Derek is a liar. And it’s not that he doesn’t trust Derek. And it’s not that he genuinely thinks Derek has anything to hide.

But all the same. He files it all away in the back of his mind, along with all the other things about Derek that don’t make sense.


	5. Hawaiian

Daddy, 5:49 PM : What are you doing?   
Me, 5:52 PM : I am on the train home! What are YOU doing?   
Daddy, 5:54 PM : I’m eating an entire large pizza by myself in my office.   
Me, 5:55 PM : If it makes you feel any less pathetic, Scott and I are probably going to eat leftover Chinese from three days ago.  
Daddy, 5:56 PM : I would rather be doing that with you and your friend than here by myself right now.   
Me, 5:57 PM : Omfg.   
Me, 5:57 PM : Do you miss me? You stupid idiot   
Daddy, 5:58 PM : Why does that make me a stupid idiot   
Daddy, 5:58 PM : I miss you most of the time.   
Me, 6:00 PM : Duummmbbbb!   
Me, 6:00 PM : I miss you too ):   
Me, 6:01 PM : Throw a slice of pizza on the ground like you’re pouring one out for me, in spirit.   
Daddy, 6:02 PM : Yet I’m the one who’s a stupid idiot.   
Me, 6:03 PM : You look yourself in the mirror every day and wonder what it is you see in me, don’t you?   
Daddy, 6:03 PM : I never wonder that.

***

Derek takes Stiles out shopping, as promised, and it’s just about as ridiculous as Stiles thought it was going to be. They roll up to the mall in one of Derek’s ludicrous cars, all shiny and new and fresh like he barely ever drives it, park in the parking garage, and then skirt right past the food court even as Stiles looks longingly over his shoulder at the pretzel place. His experience at the mall is this : pretzels, buying necessity clothes for work, or picking up a present for someone.  
Being with Derek at the mall is another experience altogether.

They walk into a department store and Derek beelines it for the men’s clothing section. Without any warning, he’s throwing clothes into Stiles’ arms by the handful. When he isn’t doing that, he’s holding shirts up to Stiles’ front and making a face like he’s adding up the pros and cons of each individual article. Some, he puts back on the rack with a huff. Others, he adds on to the ever growing pile.

It gets to the point where Stiles has to call for mercy because his arms are getting tired, and then starts the dressing room fiasco. Derek shoves him into a stall and starts putting him in everything, piece by piece, while Stiles just stands there like a dress up doll. A lot of the times, Derek puts it on Stiles, looks him up and down, and takes it off with a shake of his head before Stiles even gets a chance to look at himself in the mirror.

Stiles finally asks, “do you hate all my clothes or something?”

“I don’t hate anything you wear,” Derek says, holding a red button down up to Stiles’ front and examining it. “You just wear a lot of twenty-something fuck-off clothes.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Derek grabs a pair of pants with a price tag in the triple digits, shaking them out and holding them for Stiles to take and put on, “you dress like you’re constantly on the way to a kegger. Which is fine. But you need to have nicer clothes.”

A little miffed, Stiles shoves his legs into the pants and grumbles. “I don’t dress like I’m on my way to a kegger.”

“Hm,” is Derek’s only response, looking at Stiles in the pants like he’s assessing a math problem. He reaches out and pulls on the waistline, hard, so Stiles stumbles forward a bit and nearly brains himself on Derek’s head. “You’re skinny,” he comments, and Stiles blinks at him like he’s got ten heads.

“You’re just now realizing this? You’ve seen me naked a hundred times.”

Derek prods at Stiles’ prominent hip bones and furrows his brow. “Do you eat enough?”

“Stop thin-shaming me,” he snaps, pushing Derek’s hand away from his hips with a bit of a smack. “Are we gonna buy any of this stuff? I’m getting tired.”

“We’re only at the first store.”

The first store. Derek bought Stiles a moderate amount of clothing for an insanely outrageous price – like, three pants and a handful of shirts for the price of a starter car – and then beckoned him on to the next place. Stiles had thought he’d get some new fun stuff and maybe a couple of outfits. That’s pretty much what shopping meant to him, even shopping with a dude who’s as loaded as Derek. But apparently, shopping to Derek means combing the entire mall twice over and buying pounds of things neither of them actually need.

Stiles catches Derek at the display for a coffee maker that talks in an eerie computerized voice – things like good morning and brewing in ten…nine…eight…, and decides he should finally say something. “You know, I don’t think you or I need that.”

Derek picked up a box, shrugging his shoulders. “I can’t remember the last time I spent money on something I actually needed.” He walked off, coffee maker in hand, while Stiles stared after him with his jaw open. The man is insane. Money drunk. They fucking had to make trips to and from the car to deposit stuff and then go back and get more.

“I want a pretzel,” Stiles complains while he’s getting fitted for an actual honest to god suit. That he’s never going to fucking wear. “I’m hungry.”

“You probably should have a pretzel,” Derek said from the side where he was watching Stiles get measured by a lady wielding a ruler like a weapon. “You could use it.”

“No more Stiles is skinny jokes,” he says, rolling his eyes back into his head. “I’m weak.”

At the end of the day, Stiles is tired and grouchy, even after Derek buys him a pretzel and a lemonade. He sits in the car eating maniacally as Derek drives, and maybe he purposefully gets giant salt pellets all over the seats just to spite him. “That wasn’t as fun as I thought it was gonna be,” he says, and Derek side-eyes him a bit at a red light.

“I had fun,” he says, and Stiles just sit there, dipping his pretzel in the cheese sauce. Of course he thought it was fun. Stiles has learned one major, major thing about Derek in the time they’ve spent together so far – which is that he loves, loves, to spend his fucking money. Even more to the point, he loves to spend his money on Stiles. The entire day was essentially just Derek treating Stiles like a toy doll he has to put clothes on and groom, which probably gets him off in some cosmic way that Stiles will never understand.

Then, he has to remind himself – Derek is a type. He’s a rich guy and likely a powerful one, too, and he likes what he likes. Yes, they’re in a serious relationship and Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that Derek genuinely cares about him as a person, but also, there are times when Stiles is sure Derek thinks of him like one of his shiny toys. Which is fine. It’s what Stiles signed up for.

Still, this was one of the most exhausting days of his life. “You owe me after today,” he says, finishing off his pretzel and licking at his fingers. “We have to go my kind of shopping at some point. Scott and I want a trampoline.”

Derek briefly looks at him with a bit of a shrewd glare before turning back to stare at the road ahead of him, switching lanes with a click-click-click. “Then I’ll get you a trampoline.”

“And a hammock.”

“Okay.”

“And a patio set.”

“Sure.”

“Let me ask you something,” Stiles turns in his seat, sucking at his lemonade a little too forcefully, “where is the line drawn? I want to build a zen garden in my backyard, and I want fire torches, and I want a bird bath and a porch swing and a new lawn mower and a new path for my front yard. And you say…”

Derek doesn’t even think about it. He just shrugs and says, “I’d say you can have it all.”

Stiles stares at him, mouth hanging open. “You are fucking out of your mind,” he grouses, throwing his hands in the air. “Are you crazy?”

“Did you actually want any of that stuff, or were you just talking?”

He turns in his seat and stares dead ahead, wondering not for the first time how he wound up here. He’s in a shiny Mercedes Benz with leather seats and a screen that talks to them, with thousands of dollars worth of brand new clothes and merchandise in the trunk and backseat behind him, sitting next to a guy with thirteen credit cards in his wallet. This time last year, he was hungover most of the time and he ate top ramen for lunch six days out of the week. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.

He says, “the trampoline,” in a low voice, looking at his nailbeds, and Derek nods his head. Stiles expects it’ll be arriving to he and Scott’s house in no less than five days. The fucking idiotic lunatic.

Back at Derek’s place, they sift through the bags and Stiles’ eyes glaze over. Derek pulls out thing after thing, useless object after useless object, ridiculous whatever-the-hells, mounds of clothes, and Stiles mostly just lets it happen to him. “I need a forklift to take this all home with me,” he says, and Derek gives him a big smile.

“You can leave some of it here.”

“Seeing as how the only place I’d ever wear most of it is just to appease you, then sure.”

Derek smiles again, like it doesn’t matter either which way whether or not Stiles wants to wear any of it. He’ll be put in it whether he likes it or not.

They dig through the stuff and leave the bags in a big pile, which Stiles assumes will be handled once again by the mysterious an enigmatic maid. She doesn’t exist, or she’s a robot – Stiles is positive of this. He’s never seen the woman once, but messes appear and then vanish in the blink of an eye. After all is said and done, Stiles demands movie and couch time, which Derek is all too happy to agree to, and then half an hour is spent clicking through titles and reading the descriptions or watching the trailers.

After ten minutes spent in the action/adventure section with next to no luck, Stiles leans back into Derek’s shoulder a bit too forcefully, and Derek makes a genuine noise of pain. Stiles moves immediately, stunned, because he hadn’t thought he’d hit into Derek that hard, or really hard at all, but there Derek is, clutching his shoulder like he’s in serious, serious pain.

Stiles stares at him for just a second, mystified, and then he tosses the controller off to the side and frowns. “Are you hurt?”

Derek sits and holds his shoulder for a moment, and he looks like he’s just been caught in the act, or something. Like a big secret has been exposed. “It’s nothing,” he says, gesturing to the television. “Pick something.”

“Derek,” Stiles presses, even as Derek moves his hand away and pretends like he’s fine again. “You’re hurt. What is that?”

“It’s –“

Stiles reaches out and starts undoing the buttons of Derek’s shirt, much to Derek’s evident chagrin. He shoves the fabric aside as soon as he’s got it loose enough to do so, and then there it is – a huge gauze pad stamped onto Derek’s shoulder, incriminating and damning. “What the hell is this?” He demands, looking between the wound and Derek’s face again and again. “Derek? What is this?”

Derek rubs at his jaw. He looks at the patch himself, while Stiles stares at a small stain of blood towards the center of it. The thing isn’t even healed yet. “I didn’t tell you because it’s not a big deal,” he tries to grab at the corner of his shirt to pull it back up and cover it again, but Stiles snatches his hand away and frowns even more deeply.

“It looks like a big deal to me.”

“It’s not,” Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and looks annoyed and aggravated and, frankly, a bit guilty. “Look, it’s – it’s just an accident I had. I was…at the shooting range, and –“

“Oh, my God,” Stiles half-yells. “Is this a bullet wound?”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“It’s a graze, at most.”

“How do you –“ Stiles sputters for a moment, eyes blinking again and again like he can’t even wrap his fucking head around this bullshit right now. “…how do you – accidentally get shot? At the shooting range? This –“ …doesn’t make sense. Intrinsically, Stiles knows that it doesn’t. But he’s not at a place to not believe Derek’s word, because as far as he knows, Derek has never lied to him before.

As far as he knows.

“It’s a bunch of rich guys shooting guns at the wall,” he says in a blank tone of voice, finally pulling the shirt back up now that Stiles is too stunned to stop him. “Of course there are accidents. Look. It’s honestly just a flesh wound. Surface level. I’m not in immense pain and it’s healing fine.”

“I don’t get why you wouldn’t tell me that,” he says, which is the honest truth. Who gets shot and then decides they don’t feel like telling their boyfriend about it? It’s not like he could possibly forget – he spent the entire day walking around and hefting stuff up, there’s no way he wasn’t feeling it.

“Don’t get angry about this.”

“I’m not – angry. My boyfriend’s been shot, Jesus Christ.”

“Baby,” he puts his hand on Stiles’ face, strokes his fingers across the soft skin of his cheek, “I’m fine. It was an accident. I neglected to mention it, and I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Startle me, Stiles repeats in his head with a stunned expression on his face. That’s one fucking way to put it. Stiles has of course seen his fair share of bullet wounds via his dad and other people on the force over there, but…god damn. That’s sort of why he knows it’s not just nothing like Derek is making it out to be.

And on top of that, Derek also seems to be hellbent and moving on from it. Not just because it’s not a big deal, but because it just really seems like Stiles isn’t getting the whole story on this. Maybe someone purposefully shot him at the shooting range, but then that doesn’t make any sense either. Anything aside from Derek’s story doesn’t add up in Stiles’ brain. Who would want to shoot Derek, anyway? He’s a rich guy, yeah, but that’s really all there is to it.

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Jesus, okay. Just – can you tell me these things?”

“Yes,” Derek says automatically. “When I get shot again, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Again,” Stiles repeats, and Derek just smiles like it’s a joke. More and more lately, in the back of Stiles’ mind, he’s wondering if there just might be a joke he simply isn’t in on yet.

***

Derek sits cross legged on the bed across from where Stiles is, and he sets another one of his very familiar looking present boxes down in between them. He’s got on sweatpants and no shirt, and he looks sexy as all fucking hell, and Stiles chews on his thumb because he knows that Derek is going to be doing something different with him tonight. He’s excited and nervous at the same time, which is a nice thing to feel. It’s cool to have intrigue in a relationship, after all.  
“Open this,” he says, sliding the box closer to Stiles. Stiles pulls his hand down from his face and undoes the red ribbon slowly, pushing it off to the side and gingerly sliding his fingers underneath the top of the box to pull it open. He does, stares inside, and then looks up to meet Derek’s eyes with a hard click of his throat when he swallows. “I figured if we were gonna do it, I should buy you one that was more your style. It’s colorful.”

Of course it’s a ball gag, and Stiles shouldn’t be entirely surprised by it. He isn’t, as a matter of fact. He’s the one who said he’d be willing to try it, after all, and Derek strikes him as the type to file everything away like he’s got a photographic memory. Of course he didn’t forget. And he’s right – it is colorful, and Stiles is a bit pleased at the sight of it. It’s got a light pink ball and the straps are a baby blue color, and Stiles licks his lips and picks it out of the box.

He holds it in his hands and plays with it for a moment, unsure of what he’s supposed to say. Which is fitting, holding a gag in his hands.

“Do you like it?” Derek prods when Stiles is silent for too long.

“I do,” he says.

“Do you want to wear it?”

Stiles swallows thick and heavy again, and then he nods. He’s willing to try it, and he trusts Derek implicitly to not abuse the power Stiles is handing over to him by allowing his voice to be taken away. “Yeah.”

With a sweeping gesture of his hand, Derek runs his fingers through Stiles’ hair and gives him an incredibly fond look, like he’s proud of him or something. He stares at Stiles for what feels like a long time, just touching him gently as if in appreciation. And then he says, “let’s go over one thing before we get started. Since you can’t use your safe word, you’ll have to do something else to get me to stop if you’re uncomfortable.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, clearing his throat and fiddling with the gag in his hands some more.

“I’ll tie your hands, but your legs will be free. So just kick me.”

Stiles snorts. He can’t help it. “You want me to kick you.”

“Yes,” Derek seems equally amused if only by Stiles’ amusement. “Or head butt me, whichever is more accessible to you in the moment. And I mean hit me, Stiles. As hard as you can.”

“Jesus Christ,” he laughs out loud this time, his body shaking with it. “You really want me to…?”

“What I want is for you to have control over the situation even when it seems like you don’t,” Derek interrupts, and his tone is a lot more serious this time. “Remember that you have all the power in the world to stop me. I can have you tied up and silenced and whatever else I wanna do to you, but you’re the one who controls what happens and what doesn’t and what needs to stop. So, yes, if I do something to you that hurts you or makes you feel scared or unsure, kick the shit out of me.”

Stiles grips the ball gag in his hand and tosses that information around in his head. Derek isn’t strictly wrong – while Stiles has never been large into the real BDSM shit, he’s done his reading before. Stiles has a daddy kink, and Derek likes to control people, and it works like that. There are all kinds of labels and words in the weird kink world, and Stiles knows most of them. He also knows that there’s a lot that scares him, and giving all his free will over to someone else is one of them.

But Derek has a point. He’s not really taking anything away from Stiles by tying him up and keeping him from speaking. It’s supposed to just be fun with them, and it is, and the reason it’ll stay fun and not scary is because Derek gives a shit what Stiles wants. And Stiles might not call himself a sub, but he’s submissive in this scenario. All the same, Stiles has power. And a lot of it. There’s nothing, not a single thing, that can happen here that doesn’t have Stiles’ full stamp of approval. Derek breathes wrong, and Stiles gets to kick him.

“I need your word,” Derek presses when Stiles is inside his head for too long, and Stiles meets his eyes.

“I’ll kick you right in the bullet wound,” he says, and Derek smiles at him with all his teeth.

“Good boy.”

***

Derek gets Stiles stripped down on the bed, folding his clothes up neatly on the floor while Stiles kneels naked and focuses on Derek’s hand wrapped around his ankle – a supportive weight. He had spent a good ten minutes rifling around in Stiles’ things to find an outfit he deemed appropriate, and he came out the other side with an entire thing that actually honest to God matched. Stiles sometimes just doesn’t get where Derek gets his fucking style savvy from, but he doesn’t mind it, not one bit.  
He pulls a pair of light blue lace underwear with bows on the sides up Stiles’ legs, and Stiles lets him. He just moves into them to make it easier for Derek to get them on. And then some pink stockings go on each leg, slow and gentle. The touch alone is already making Stiles hard, as he leans forward on his hands and knees and just lets Derek dress him like this. Normally, Stiles just dresses himself and comes out all ready – but he knows that tonight is different, and not just in regards to this.

Derek takes each of Stiles’ hands by the wrist, so Stiles has to lean forward and press his cheek into the bed as he pulls them behind Stiles’ back. He picks up the crisp white rope he’d pulled out of the Stiles box under the bed and makes quick work of tying Stiles’ wrists together flat and criss-crossed, so Stiles can still move his fingers a bit, but can’t really do anything with them.

“Okay?” Derek asks, voice very low. Stiles clears his throat and speaks for what will probably be the last time in a long while.

He says, “yes, it’s fine. Uh – pineapple on pizza is disgusting.”

Derek pauses. He says, “what?”

“Just getting a last minute thought out there before I gotta go quiet,” he shifts a little, rubbing his cheek into Derek’s comforter. “It just doesn’t make sense. Fruit on pizza? It doesn’t add up.”

“Tomatoes are a fruit. Pizza sauce is made with tomatoes.”

“Can you not argue with me when I’m just putting my thoughts out into the void?” Stiles huffs, shifting a bit more. “And we need to have a talk after this about your eating habits.”

“I like Hawaiian pizzas.”

“That’s by and large the kinkiest, most fucked up thing about you.”

Derek laughs lightly, rubbing his hand up and down Stiles’ back all nice and slow in a way that makes Stiles shiver. “Okay,” he says, and then this is it. Stiles twists his head to watch as Derek picks the gag up, and his eyes watch every single movement he makes with it. “Are you ready? Any more last minute confessions?”

Stiles licks his lips. “I really want a pina colada, now. The mention of pineapple has me feeling tropical.”

With that, Derek slides the ball into Stiles’ mouth and turns his head so he can strap it nice and tight, and it’s quiet time. Stiles knew from the get-go without it having to be discussed that once the gag was on, it was starting, and Stiles chews on the thing for a moment to try and get used to it. It’s a weird foreign thing in his mouth and it is vaguely uncomfortable – by the end, his jaw is going to fucking hurt.

“There we go,” Derek says, in that voice that he really only uses when they’re playing. “You look so pretty. All matched up in your nice clothes.” He pulls a bit on Stiles’ underwear so the elastic slaps against his lower back, making him jump a bit. “Do you know how good looking you are?”

Stiles rubs his cheek into the bedding and huffs through his nose, giving Derek a bit of a look to the best of his ability.

“I like everything about how you look,” he goes on, running his fingers gently over Stiles’ lower back. “I’m sorry if I made fun of you for being thin, earlier.” Stiles can’t believe Derek can even be thinking about that right now, and frankly, Stiles forgot about that. He didn’t really care, after all; the whole skinny twink thing has worked for him up to this point. “It’s just, you’re so fucking skinny. It makes me wonder how this,” both of his hands grab onto his ass in a harsh squeeze through the fabric of Stiles’ underwear to accentuate his point, “is even possible.”

Stiles wants to quip that all the doritos and pizza go right down to his ass no matter what he does, but he can’t. He literally can’t talk. He could make a weird guttural noise in the back of his throat that would mean nothing, absolutely nothing, to Derek. It hits him then, like a freight train, and was likely Derek’s entire goal with talking to him like this in the first place – he cannot speak.

Derek can say anything, anything at all to him, and he can’t answer it. He can’t make a smartass comment or make a joke or get pissy and bratty with Derek for not doing what he wants. He can’t do anything except for lie here, listening and waiting for instruction while Derek just talks, and talks.

This is, by and large, the most controlled he’s ever felt in his life. Derek probably knows that. “You’re such a good boy, willing to try new things just for me. I’ll tell you what,” he goes on, and Stiles wonders if Derek is only talking to drive the point home or if he’s doing it to make Stiles feel more comfortable – it’s working, on both counts. Stiles is content to just listen to the sound of Derek’s voice and not have to worry about answering it. “…you do this for me, and then you think of something you want me to try for you. Okay? That’s fair.” It is fair. Stiles nods his head against the sheets and Derek pats him on the back.

It’s not ten minutes later that Derek has Stiles set up in the middle of the bed with his face in the pillows, ass high and legs wide, pressing his tongue into Stiles’ entrance while his hand strokes slow and gentle on his weeping hard cock. Derek had never eaten Stiles out before, so Stiles was surprised at the first gentle lick at his hole, but now it feels like it’s been houuursss, to the point where Stiles can’t imagine Derek not doing this to him. Derek flicks his tongue at the sensitive rim, laps it inside and out in quick successions of five (because Stiles had started counting to keep his mind straight). He gives long laps from Stiles’ balls back up to his hole, again and again, while Stiles just makes muffled desperate noises behind his gag, twisting his face up and shaking.

He wants to ask if this is how he’s going to come. He wants to know if he’s going to come at all, from this. He wants to know if Derek is going to fuck him, if Derek is going to finger him open, if they’re just going to spend hours like this, torturing Stiles and bringing him to the edge only to drag him back again and again. But he can’t. He can only let it happen and make begging sounds that Derek is all too happy to ignore.

Derek presses Stiles’ cock against his chest, pulling his mouth away briefly to just rub and rub on his erection. Stiles’ eyes roll back into his head and he shudders, whimpering. He wants to come bad enough he’d do just about anything Derek asked to make it happen.

But the hand vanishes, and then Derek is back to lick at him some more, driving Stiles insane. The quick tongue-fucks could possibly be enough to make Stiles come if Derek tried hard enough, and he likely knows that – which is why he doesn’t try, not at all. He does it once or twice just to hear Stiles beg for more with pathetic little sounds, and then goes back to focusing only on the rim, devilishly.

It’s about five more minutes (or five hours, or five days) that Stiles sniffles up above, which is a sound that Derek’s ears are highly attuned to. He gives a final lap to Stiles’ ballsack for good measure, and then peeks his head up over Stiles’ ass to get a look at his face. He says, “is my boy crying?”

Stiles is. Derek has literally eaten Stiles out so fucking well that he’s crying, which Stiles really thought only happened in porn, but here he is. Big fat tears roll down his cheeks and he mewls, a bit of drool coming out onto the pillow around his gag. There’s a whole spot of drool that he’s forced to press his cheek into, too scared to move away from it for fear Derek will stop making him feel like this.

“Oh, baby,” he says, leaning up all the way onto his knees to smile all benign and soft at Stiles’ crying face. “You just want to come, don’t you?”

Stiles nods, slow and steady.

“You look so good like this. Baby, can I take a picture?”

Stiles nods again, more than used to Derek and his pictures at this point. He’s more than positive Derek’s got an entire folder on his phone containing the ones that Stiles has sent himself and ones that Derek has taken in moments like this before. You’d think the man would tire of it after a while, but honestly, he seems to want a collection. Which is fine by Stiles.

Derek gets up off the bed and swipes his phone up, and from Stiles’ angle he can see Derek’s raging hard on sticking out in his sweatpants. He stares at it nice and long even through teary eyes, while Derek angles the phone and gets his picture.

Humiliation burns hot and strong in Stiles’ gut at the thought of what the picture looks like, what he looks like right now, how he’s crying. How his ass is probably wide open and red, how he’s drooling and still, keeping his legs open for Derek.

By all counts, it should turn Stiles off, but it just doesn’t. It only makes him think that this humiliation, this absolute display of Derek’s ability to take Stiles apart piece by piece and wreck him, is only for the two of them. Derek is the only one who gets to see him like this. Derek’s bed is the only place he feels safe enough to be so vulnerable.

And maybe, just a little bit, he likes that Derek does this to him. Dresses him up like a doll and ties and gags him and makes him cry and then takes a picture of it to jerk off to later. He likes it.

Derek knees his way back onto the bed, dropping his phone aside and getting back behind Stiles. He puts his hand on Stiles’ cheeks, pulls them apart, and Stiles is happy to oblige him more – spreading open and making a desperate sound. “You’re so ready to come, aren’t you?” He pats Stiles’ hole with two fingers, a little hard, and Stiles jerks and lifts his ass up higher. “Aw, yes, baby, you are. But I don’t think I’m ready to let you, just yet.”

Stiles cries harder, a long drawn out moan that sounds a lot like a sob and probably is one, filling the otherwise empty silence of the room.

“It’s coming so soon, baby. You’re just so good at being daddy’s good boy. I have to play with you some more. But I’ll tell you what. You can pick how you get edged, how’s that sound?”

It sounds like complete and utter torture. Being forced to pick which method Derek will use to make Stiles cry more and beg more and drool more – it’s complete torture. The best part about it is that Stiles is into it. He feels a bit shocky, his legs quaking from the effort of kneeling and spreading for so long, and his mind is a bit muddled, but he feels so entirely controlled, so entirely powerless, and he fucking loves it.

“I’ll give you three options.” He strokes Stiles’ ass cheeks, long drags of his fingers that likely leave bright red marks in their wake. “Number one, I can get the vibrator out and run it along your pretty little cock. Number two, I can lick you. Or number three, I’ll lube you up and stroke you. Which is it gonna be?” He tickles Stiles’ balls and Stiles leans into the touch, desperate. “The vibrator?” Stiles is silent, so Derek pushes forward. “My mouth?” More silence. Then, “my hand?”

Stiles makes a noise of assent, a brief hmm noise, and Derek smiles at him. “Good boy. Such a good boy. You are doing so, so well. You’re going to get the biggest reward at the end of all of this, if you can just hold on.”

He listens to the slick sound of Derek lubing up his hand, the squirt of the tube and the rub of his hands together, and then Derek’s hand is on his cock, and stroking. He knows the perfect way to do it, too, slow and steady with a twist of his wrist at the head that has Stiles seeing stars and bucking into the touch, all mindless and starving for it. He pumps, pumps, and Stiles locks up and nearly comes, nearly, but he makes two quick noises to alert Derek, and Derek stops.

“Good boy,” he says, patting Stiles on his ass. He waits a moment, keeping his hand still and frozen, and then he starts again, making Stiles shift and huff into the pillow through his nose. The slick sound that their skin makes together is all Stiles can hear over his own noises, and it’s not ten seconds later that he has to warn Derek again, and Derek is stopping.

Stiles cries a little bit more, and Derek shushes him with gentle strokes. He tries to ask a question behind his gag – how much more? – and Derek must be able to understand, because he actually gives an answer. “Not too much. I’m so amazed by you. You are daddy’s best and only boy.”

He nods. Of course he is. Of course, of course, of course.

The stroking starts again and Stiles just sobs. He cries into his pillow and struggles and tries to get out of his ropes and thinks that he can’t do it. He just cannot do this. It’s so much, it’s so much, but he can’t help himself. He wants to be rewarded. He wants to come so hard at the end of all this that he blacks out, and Derek can make that happen, if he just does this.

Stiles isn’t sure when Derek stops, exactly, but he knows that he doesn’t come. The entire situation is starting to feel less and less like actual reality, if he’s being honest, and all he can be truly sure of is that his pillow is wet and Derek is murmuring praise to him and he’s just lying there, staring at the wall.

He comes a bit back online when Derek enters him, one steady push, and Stiles is so fucking pleased. He knows that when Derek fucks him he can come whenever his little heart desires, and he meets Derek’s thrusts as best as he can, happily at that. It’s a wonder his body can even move, he’s so fucked out and exhausted already, but he does it. He pushes back and gets Derek to hit his prostate, and he’s satisfied with himself.

He comes, and he actually does sort of drift off into his own head. He doesn’t actually black out, but Jesus Christ he fucking shoots so hard and so long and so fucking much that all he can hear is him practically screaming behind his gag, and skin slapping skin because Derek doesn’t stop. It just feels so good, and Stiles almost can’t deal with a pleasure that fucking amazing, so he checks out.

Completely and totally blanks the rest of what happens.

When he comes back to himself, Derek is quickly undoing the ropes and saying something to him, but he just blinks and feels like he just woke up. Maybe he actually fell asleep – who fucking knows? He has a vague memory of Derek coming, possibly, or maybe that’s just…Stiles doesn’t know. He’s so fucked out. He’s so fucked stupid.

“…with me?” Derek’s voice comes to him, and he blinks. He’s still crying. Or is he? “I said, baby, are you with me?”

Stiles answers. He meeps behind his gag and Derek looks relieved, from what Stiles can see of him. The ropes are off, and Stiles’ arms flop like jelly onto the bed. He can move them now, and his wrists ache with the need to be rubbed, but Stiles doesn’t even touch them. He just lies like a dead jelly fish on the bed. The thought, honest to God, makes him giggle. He probably looks insane, right about now.

Next thing is the gag coming off, and Stiles watches with detached fascination as his saliva leaves a trail connecting the ball to his mouth. His mouth stays open, because he doesn’t think he can move it. Then, he does, and furrows his brow and whimpers when it aches. He’s confused as all shit right now. “Hm –“ he murmurs, and Derek reaches out to touch his face, right along his jaw and mouth.

“Does it ache?”

“Hm,” Stiles says back, and Derek just looks at him for what seems like a long time. It could literally be two seconds, for all Stiles knows.

“We’re done, now,” Derek says, in a gentle voice that Stiles wants to curl up inside of. He wants a fucking nap. He needs one. “We’re all finished, and you did so amazing, and I just want to tell you how great you are. How much I appreciate you. All I want you to think about right now is how much I care about you.”

Stiles does think about that. He reflects on earlier in the day, which seems like a lifetime ago now, when Derek bought him all that stuff and Stiles was kind of a whiny brat about it the entire time, and now he feels bad, and has to bring it up. “I’m a brat,” he mutters, and Derek shakes his head fervently and gives Stiles’ hair some strokes.

“You’re my good boy.” A long, pregnant pause. “I love you.”

It’s momentous, this moment, but it goes over Stiles’ head. Like water, like ice vanishing, Stiles misses it. He just smacks his lips and his mouth is so fucking dry and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

“You fucked my brains to mush,” he face plants into his drool covered pillow and feels disgusting.

“We are going to take a warm bath.”

“Bubbles.”

“Yeah, a bubble bath. Whatever you want.”

“Rubber ducks.”

“I don’t have rubber ducks,” he feels more than actually experiences himself being lifted and carried, his octopus legs just dangling off the end of Derek’s arm. He thinks about how it must hurt for Derek to have to carry Stiles like this when he’s got that bullet wound, and then they’re in the bathroom. Stiles sits on the edge of the bath and Derek runs the water, looking at Stiles obsessively every two seconds like he’s a bit petrified he’s going to go up in smoke or something. “I’ve got some different bath scents. Want to smell?”

Stiles makes grabby hands, and Derek produces a small basket of little bottles that he picks at individually to sniff. This absorbs all of his attention, like the best ADHD medication in the entire planet, and the next thing he knows, Derek is picking one and dumping it into the bath and then they’re getting into the hot water.

Derek goes in first, and then he pulls Stiles’ back up against his chest and sets his chin on Stiles’ shoulder, rubbing him up and down, up and down, on his arms. They stay like that for a while. A long while. Stiles is tired and brainless and his body hurts and aches in more places than he can focus on, but the water feels incredible.

After some time of being stroked and pampered in the bath, Derek speaks. “That was very intense,” he says, and waits for Stiles’ response as if to gauge where he currently is in coming out of whatever fugue state he just went into.

Stiles is still, still, fucked dumb, but he’s at least more than half alive. “Yeah,” he agrees.

“Why don’t you tell me what was going through your mind, towards the end there?”

Stiles furrows his brow. “When?”

Derek hums, crawling his fingers up and down Stiles’ back like spider’s legs. “When I was fucking you. What were you thinking?”

For the life of him, Stiles cannot remember. Frankly, the question blows his mind. “Ummm…” he says, leaning his head back into Derek’s body as he stares up at the ceiling and tries to think straight. It comes back to him in pieces, the whole thing, and abruptly, he feels…weird. He thinks about crying like he did and feels weird, and he thinks about the things that Derek said to him, and he feels weird. But he tries to focus, because yeah, sex always seems fucking bizarre once you’ve come and you’re not turned on anymore, especially if you’re a kinkster, and he tries to answer Derek’s question. “When you were fucking me,” he repeats, voice low, and Derek just listens silently. “I was just thinking about…I wasn’t. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Okay,” Derek says, like that’s something that makes sense at all. “How about when I was edging you. You remember that?”

The torture? Oh, Stiles can’t forget it. “Yeah, you asshole.”

Derek breathes through his nose. It sounds like relief, like Stiles is being normal again. “What were you thinking?”

“When you took the picture of me,” Stiles sits up a bit, the water moving as he does, and Derek follows him, as if he doesn’t want their skin to not be touching, not for one second. “When you took that picture of me, I was so…I was so fucking humiliated.”

“Okay,” Derek says. When Stiles chances a glance at his face, he finds Derek’s brows drawn tight, his lips in a firm line.

“…but I just. I don’t know. I liked it. Is that – that’s really fucked up,” he laughs, breathless and insanely, palming his face. “I really liked it. It seems so weird, now. Like that didn’t happen to me.”

“Mmmhmm,” Derek says, to indicate he’s listening. “I have the picture. So it happened. Tell me more about what you were thinking. I just want to listen to you talk, right now. Use your voice, say anything you want.”

Stiles blinks and remembers that for the past who-knows how long he hasn’t been allowed to speak. He hasn’t spoken. His voice is raspy and his words are slow and sluggish, and his jaw hurts. “I felt so used, I don’t know. I felt really…I just haven’t felt so…” he struggles to find words, and Derek just listens and waits. “…this whole day. You taking me shopping and buying me all that stuff, and then you tying me up like that and – and doing all those things to me. I – I just. I just felt so owned. Like you’ve just…got me. And I wanted to come so fucking bad I could barely think straight, but I didn’t, because you said not to, so I didn’t.” He blinks. “I’m so fucked out, dude.”

“You wanna know something?” Derek leans in to Stiles’ ear, kisses him on his temple and runs wet hands all over him. “You’ve got me, right back. After that, you could ask me for anything, and I’d jump over backwards to get it for you. You did so well. I’m not just saying that. I’m owned and whipped right back.”

Stiles laughs. It’s light and carefree and he’s so tired. “I’m soo fucking fucked. That orgasm – I’m telling you, I went blank.”

“I know you did.” He’s quiet for a moment, and then he clears his throat. “I think you went into a bit of a headspace. It’s sort of like your mind’s reaction to being, uh – treated like that.”

“Oh,” Stiles blinks.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he assures, stroking Stiles’ hair some more. “I just don’t know if you’ve ever been through it. You went through it kind of that night at your place, but not…like this.”

Nothing at all like this. Not even fucking close. For a minute there, Stiles wasn’t even entirely certain what had just happened had actually happened. It’s like he went off to another planet. Mars, maybe.

“I want to talk about it some more. It was a lot,” he kisses Stiles on his forehead.

“I guess all I have left to say about it is that I love orgasms. I love when you edge me so well that my orgasm basically puts me in a wheelchair. I love when you tie me up and use me like that. I love our sex, dude.”

“Okay,” Derek sighs and leans back into the water, careful to avoid his wound, and content to just sit there with Stiles. “What hurts? What do you need?”

Stiles thinks about that for a moment. His wrists are red and agitated and there will likely be marks, and his jaw hurts to talk with, and his ass is in another dimension he’s fairly certain, but his mind keeps coming back to one thing, and one thing alone. “I need a pina colada.”

“Are you honestly still thinking about that?”

“Dude.” He turns and looks Derek in the face. “It came up. I can’t get it out of my head. I don’t think this night can end if I don’t get a pina colada.”

He taps his fingers on the edge of the tub and looks up at the ceiling, like he honestly cannot believe this. All the same, he comes back down and sighs. “All right,” he huffs, scrubbing through his damp hair. “Then we’ll get you a pina colada.”

He reaches across to the toilet, where he set his phone down – and Stiles wonders how the hell he got that in here and when that fucking happened – and picks it up to use it. Stiles is in bafflement watching Derek use his fucking iphone right over a body of water, but then he remembers if Derek were to drop it and ruin it, he’d just go out and get a new one. No big fucking deal. He presses it to his ear, looks Stiles in the eyes and smiles at him, and clears his throat. “Hey, it’s me,” he says, and a voice answers him. “Can you run out to that 24 hour grocery store and get me a bottle of pina colada mix and whatever the hell else you need for those? Yeah. Look up a recipe for me. Yup, back to the apartment. All right, thank you. You’re making someone’s night right now, trust me.”

He hangs up, and Stiles stares at him. “Who the hell was that?” He demands, mouth agape.

“Heidi,” Derek says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Who the hell is Heidi?”

Derek looks at him like he’s gone dumb. “My maid.”

Stiles looks away, mouth still hanging open, and then his eyes begin to slowly narrow. “So she is a real person,” he muses, out at nothing and nobody. Derek looks at the side of his face, and then Stiles guesses he decides to not even grace that with an answer, because he says nothing.

Thirty minutes later, Stiles is in sweatpants and an oversized tee from Derek, waiting in anticipation at the counter, when the front door opens, and in walks who can only be Heidi. She’s a very large, very severe looking woman with a German accent who eyeballs Stiles like a piece of lint she wants to swipe off the counter. “Here,” she announces, dumping two large grocery bags down on the kitchen island while Derek watches with his arms crossed. “Here are your things.”

“Thank you,” Derek says, and she just looks at him like she wants him to drop dead. Derek seems unfazed. She sets her eyes on Stiles, who again is given this look. She’s two seconds away from putting on rubber gloves, grabbing a sponge, and scrubbing him until he vanishes like a spot in the carpet, Stiles is positive of it.

“Uh,” he starts, and then clears his throat. “Thanks?”

“Ridiculous,” she half-bellows, and then storms out of the apartment without another word, slamming the door behind her.

Stiles watches her go, flinching when the door slams, and turns back to Derek with his mouth hanging open. “Holy shit.”

“She’s been my maid since I was fifteen,” he explains, shrugging his shoulders. “She’s like a second mom.”

“Have you ever seen those psychology experiments?” Stiles asks, while Derek picks around in the grocery bags and then bends down to grab at a blender from down below. “With the monkeys?”

“There have been a lot of experiments on monkeys,” Derek says, plugging the blender in and then pulling the mixer out of the grocery bag, followed by a large bottle of tequila.

“The ones with the cloth mother, and the wire mother? The wire mother has food, but the cloth mother doesn’t? But the monkeys still like the cloth mother better because she’s warm?”

Derek focuses all his attention on a recipe that Heidi must have printed out for him.

“Heidi is the wire mother.”

“She’s a little brusque,” he agrees, shrugging. “But she took me and Laura in after the fire and gave us a roof and a bed.”

Derek has mentioned his older sister Laura, the only other lone survivor from the mysterious fire that Derek won’t speak of, in passing twice, and only twice. This is the second time. Stiles doesn’t even know where to begin asking questions about her.

He pulls a full pineapple out and eyeballs it, leaning over his recipe again. “And she does pretty much everything for me. I don’t think I could function without her,” he gets a wane smile on his face, opening up his freezer and pulling ice out. “But no, yeah, she’s very mean and I’m positive she hates you on principle alone.”

“I thought she was a figment of your imagination up until, like, ten minutes ago.”

“She makes herself scarce when you’re here,” he dumps ice into the blender, followed by an absurd amount of tequila. “Because again – principle alone.”

“Has she ever found any of your weird kink shit and been shocked to her core?” He leans his chin in his palm and waggles his eyebrows, interested.

Derek smirks. “She’s cleaned up your come-stained panties before, so –“

“AAAAHHHHHH,” Stiles is sure the windows fucking rattle he shrieks so loud, throwing his head back in dismay. “What the fuck! Derek! That’s something you clean yourself! No wonder she fucking hates me, holy shit.” He covers his face with his hands. This entire night – surreal. “I’m mortified.”

“I thought you were into that.”

“This is public humiliation. This is social faux pas. I’m going to kill myself, I’m not fucking with you.”

Derek turns the blender on, smirking high and wide like the Cheshire Cat and drowning out the sound of Stiles’ embarrassment.

Stiles gets his pina colada. Derek even dresses it up with a pineapple slice around the rim of the glass and a little paper umbrella that Stiles is honestly shocked Heidi went out of her way to pick up. “See?” He says, gesturing to the little pink thing in his drink like it’s all the evidence in the world. “She’s a fucking bitch, but she’s thoughtful.”

He sips his drink and ignores that comment, swallowing it down and making a long aahhh sound. “That is honestly hitting the spot.”

“I cannot believe you couldn’t stop thinking about that just because you mentioned pineapples before we got started,” Derek sits down across from him and just watches Stiles enjoy his drink, seeming happy if only because Stiles is. “Your mind is a twisted place, I would think.”

“It’s very dark and cavernous up here,” he taps his temple and plays with his paper umbrella. “But uh – hey.”

“Yeah?” Derek asks, sitting up a bit straighter. If Stiles had to guess, he’d bet that Derek thinks he’s about to say something about how the sex was, or something weird that he did that now that he’s lucid and clearheaded he can bring up – but it’s actually nothing like that.

Stiles fiddles more with his umbrella, keeping his eyes downcast until he’s brave enough to look Derek right in his face. “You said you loved me, earlier.”

Without even thinking about it, Derek nods his head. “I did.” Then, after a beat. “I do.”

“That’s cool.” He absentmindedly dunks his umbrella in and out of his drink, shrugging. “I love you back. I’m really into you. We’re super weird, but it works.”

“I agree.”

“And you make me laugh.”

“You make me laugh,” Derek repeats, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“We have fun, and stuff. And the sex is badass. I, uh – yeah. I love you. And thank you, daddy, for my pina colada.”

“You should thank Heidi,” he corrects with a finger wag, and Stiles raises his eyebrows.

“Thank you, mommy Heidi –“

“Oh, no, gross,” he flinches, physically flinches away from Stiles. “Don’t say that, baby, for real. Don’t call her mommy.”

Stiles grins, biting on his straw.

***

Stiles and Derek’s six month anniversary rolls around on a sunny September day. Really, Stiles only remembers what their anniversary is because for him, it was a pretty monumental night. He considers it to be the night after Stiles got piss drunk on wine and then Derek asked him to stay at his apartment during the day while he did whatever it is he did and then fucked his brains out as soon as he got back. Stiles gets all fluttery just thinking about that night, so of course he remembers the exact date it happened on.  
Really, he doesn’t think Derek is going to know it’s their six month anniversary. Which Stiles honestly won’t even be upset about – after all, it’s not like they ever really talked about it and there are four different nights from the start of their relationship that could also be considered the official starting point.

Stiles just wants to do something nice for Derek, without expecting anything back in return. It’s on a Monday, so he knows Derek will be out of his apartment for most of if not the entire day. Sometime around two months ago Derek had given Stiles a key card so he could just swipe his way inside, so Stiles does, carrying in a handful of grocery bags and peeking over corners to make sure Derek isn’t around.

“Daddy?” He calls into the silence of the apartment, just to be sure. He stands there in the living room listening to nothing, waiting for some sign of life, and nothing comes. He smirks and rustles into the kitchen with his bags, setting them down on the island and unpacking them bit by bit.

He sets up a big string-banner with metallic red cardboard letter that read HAPPY ANNIVERSARY across his cabinets and sprinkles red heart shaped confetti all over the counters and the island as well for good measure. He puts a vase of red roses on the breakfast nook’s table, sets out plates and silverware and napkins, pops open champagne and nearly shatters the window in the process before setting it in the ice bucket, and then calls to order the pizza. He doesn’t know exactly when Derek should be back, but he has a pretty good idea it’ll be around eight o’clock. Typically, that’s when Derek calls him if it’s a week day.

The pizzas arrive after Stiles has spent an inordinate amount of time scribbling a note to Derek in a cheesy card he bought, and he carries it in and sets it on the counter. If it starts to get too cold, it won’t be a big deal – they’ll just zap it back to life in the microwave.

Luckily for the both of them, however, it’s only about ten minutes later that Stiles hears the telltale sound of the elevator dinging outside the front door. He scrambles off the stool he had been perched on at the island, re-reading his card to make sure it didn’t sound too stupid, and makes quick work of lighting the candles and dimming the overhead lights. He shoves the card into its envelope, where he’s written Daddy on the front with hearts all over it, right before the key card swipes with a resounding click.

Derek walks in looking exhausted. Which is generally what he always looks like on days when he works – like he’s just been put through the ringer again, and again, and again, all over the course of twelve hours. He’s got on a button down and khakis, sleeves rolled up and face blank. Stiles peeks at him around the corner and watches him set something in his set of drawers at the start of his living room, and then he rubs his hands down his face and looks pretty miserable.

Stiles leaps out from his hiding spot and blows on a tiny party horn, startling Derek enough that he actually jumps back, nearly tripping over his own feet. “Happy anniversary!” Stiles yells, and then blows on the horn again – long and loud, this time.

From the literal second that Stiles comes into his sight and the shock of being scared shitless wears off, Derek’s face shifts from worn down and terrible to absolutely overwhelmed with genuine glee. He grins, his face almost splitting with it, and Stiles keeps on blowing the horn until Derek walks right up to him and pulls it out of his hand, tossing it aside towards the trash can. “Happy anniversary,” Derek repeats back to him, leaning down to catch Stiles’ mouth on his own. They kiss, Derek tasting like mouthwash like he’d cleaned himself up after having a spicy lunch, or something. When they pull apart, Derek is still smiling at him all dumb like that, and Stiles can’t help but smile back.

“I got you roses,” he points to them on the table, and then to the pizza. “And dinner. And I got you a present.”

He reaches down and picks the bag up from the floor, rustling about in the tissue paper before placing it on the island right in between them. He pushes it towards him, nearly biting his lip off in excitement. Then, right as Derek is about to push all the paper aside to get to the real gift, Stiles grabs his wrist and nearly screams, “read my card first.”

Derek fishes it out, seems amused at the front of it, and pulls the actual card from the envelope. It’s just a goofy card with little cartoon fish that say something about being in love or whatever the hell, and Derek flips it open to reveal Stiles’ messy handwriting all over both sides, drowning out the stupid text that had come already inside the card.

Without missing a beat, Derek perches on the stool closest to him and starts reading, so Stiles can only stand there watching his eyes scan and scan over every individual line. It doesn’t say anything too crazy – it just says that Stiles loves him, for the most part. And that he’s really, really happy, and Derek makes him feel really important and loved. And that the sex is great and Derek is really good at hitting Stiles’ buttons and Derek listens and he’s compassionate and sweet even though he doesn’t seem like it and – well. On and on and on.

Derek finishes with a tiny smile on his face. He closes the card and leans over to peck Stiles on the lips, and then on the cheek, and the jaw. “I love you so much,” he says, and Stiles blushes and gestures to the present again.

Derek hunts through the tissue paper, and the soft clink of Derek’s fingers smacking against glass makes Stiles start laughing. It’s just so funny, to him, because Derek looks mystified. He reaches in with both hands, pulling out – a fish bowl, that Stiles had put a lid on just to keep the water from spilling while it was still in present-form.

He sets the fish bowl down on the island for the both of them to look at, and inside, a bright blue beta fish swims and looks confused, circling the bowl a couple of times while Derek watches with his lips parted. He looks up, meets Stiles’ eyes. “This isn’t…”

Stiles grins and nods. “That is a fish from the fountain room at The Silver Snake. And I have to say, I was a little miffed that you told me I couldn’t have one and they weren’t for sale, and then I just walk in and say I want one and they scramble to get it for me.”

Derek leans down and looks at the fish closer, his smile big and his eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I mean, they were confused at first. I walked in and said I wanted to buy one of the blue fish from the fountain room and they stared at me like I had ten heads,” he leans back, waggling his eyebrows. “Then, I dropped your name and waved your credit card around and they practically jumped over backwards to net the thing out from the stream and put it in a travel-safe container.”

The fish swims, and Stiles watches Derek watching it and can’t help but smile. He seems so surprised and pleased – which Stiles honestly wasn’t sure about. Stiles doesn’t have the money to buy Derek some extravagant thing, and really if he did, what would be the point? Derek can buy anything himself and, plus, he already has everything. Stiles had to go the sentimental gift route.

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, for Mr. Hale? Oh yes, sir, yes right away, you want the blue fish, can I get you anything else, do you want to pick another one as well?” he mocks, and Derek rolls his eyes. “I just thought he was a good reminder of our first real date, and all. He’s really cute, too. I like him, I don’t know about you.”

“I like him,” Derek agrees, finally taking his eyes off the fish to settle them right onto Stiles. “You are so thoughtful, you have no idea.”

Stile blushes, shrugging.

“I had the most awful day today. I can’t tell you how nice it is to come home to you like this, you’ve just made me feel so much better.”

“Well, good.” He says, and then he gestures to the nook, where the pizzas are waiting for them. “Come on and eat your food. I got you a Hawaiian. I spent money on that, Derek.”

“You really sacrifice for me,” Derek mocks, taking a seat on the cushioned bench and popping open the top box, where the smell of tomato and cheese and pineapple drifts out and nearly makes Stiles want to puke.

“I sacrificed my dignity and self respect. My mom was from New York, also known as, the birthplace of American pizza as we know it. We don’t do that to pizza where my people come from, Derek.”

“I love how you got this for me, and now you’re going to bitch about it the entire time,” Derek lifts a single brow as he takes a big slice out of the box, licking grease off his finger-tips. “And second of all, they sell Hawaiian pizza in New York.”

“For the tourists. Scum.”

“Have you ever been to New York?”

Stiles hesitates, watching Derek take an enormous bite out of his slice. “Well – no.”

“So you’d be the scum tourist if you ever went.”

“At least I wouldn’t desecrate any establishments by walking in demanding they put fruit on my damn pizza.”

Derek wipes at his mouth, seeming amused and pleased and all around very, very happy. He says, “I can take you to New York sometime, if you’d like.”

Stiles hums happily with interest, fishing his own plain pepperoni slice out from the bottom box, far far away from the pineapples. “That would be awesome,” he says.

“I’ll take you on your birthday. Let me see if I can’t book it…” he pulls his phone out of his pocket with a furrow to his brow, one-handing his pizza slice as he taps around on his touch screen with the other. Stiles watches him and chews, slowly.

“You’re really going to just buy a flight to New York City on a whim right now?”

Derek shakes his head. “It’s not a whim, it’ll be part of your birthday present,” he says, and then follows it up with, “and I don’t need a flight, I have a jet.” Of course he does. “I’m looking for a hotel reservation.”

“Is this because you feel guilty for not knowing it was our anniversary and you didn’t get me anything? If so, let me just say –“

Derek laughs. He puts his slice of pizza down and laughs, and laughs, and laughs, like Stiles had just said the funniest fucking thing imaginable. Stiles stares at him, lips curling upwards at the corners because what the fucking hell is he cackling about, and waits for some sort of an explanation.

“You really think I didn’t know you’d be doing some anniversary bullshit this week?” He lifts a brow, cocking his head to the side. “Baby. I know you like the back of my mind. You’re a sentimental cheeseball who acts like he’s all tough and mean with sarcasm and jokes. You’ve got a marshmallow heart underneath it all, and you love corniness. I knew three months ago you were going to pull shit over on me.”

Stiles blinks at him. Okay, well, fuck.

“I didn’t know exactly which day you were going to pick, so I just bought your gift and waited until you struck. Now here we are.”

“You bought me a gift?” He demands, putting his own slice of pizza down on his plate and wiping his hands off on his jeans. “Can I have it?”

“You may have it, yes,” Derek lifts up a single finger, “in a minute. Let me finish booking this.”

Derek books the hotel for Stiles’ birthday weekend, and they sit there eating pizza until Derek physically cannot eat anymore; it turns out, his limit is one slice short of an entire large pie. Stiles is antsy the entire time, because even though this entire night was planned for Derek and Derek alone, he’s fucking giddy at the prospect of getting his own present and practically glares daggers through Derek’s head the longer he takes to eat.

Which is spoiled. But he is, at this point.

Derek finishes up, and then he stands, stretching and patty his non-existent belly. “Thank you,” he says, and Stiles smiles up at him. “You’re a good boy.”

“Yes.” He agrees. “Which is why it’s my turn for a present.”

With a grin, Derek nods his head in agreement. He cocks his head towards the front door, and says, “get your shoes on. I’ve gotta drive you to it.”

“Wh –“ Stiles sputters, even while Derek bends down and collects Stiles’ shoes from their pile next to the stove. He puts them on Stiles’ lap, and makes the hurry up gesture with his hand. “But – are we going out out? Because I’m…I’m sorta –“ he points to himself. “I’m sorta inappropriate under the boy clothes.”

Derek’s eyes go dark, for just a second, and then he smiles. “Nowhere public. I just left it across town so you wouldn’t find it, let’s say.”

“What about Satchmo? I don’t know if he’s ready to be alone just yet.”

Derek blinks at him. “Who?”

Stiles gestures to the blue fish on the table, swimming around and looking a bit annoyed at his tight quarters. He has a bigger tank for him sitting in his closet at home, but he just hasn’t had the time to set it up at Derek’s just yet.

Immediately getting it and rolling his eyes, Derek just shuffles Stiles away and insists that Satchmo will be just fine on his own for an hour or so.

Things only get more suspicious when, after Stiles is buckled into the Audi, Derek honest to God reaches out and fucking blindfolds him. “Aw, really?” Stiles asks, clucking his tongue but not resisting it at all as Derek ties one of his nice, silk ties around Stiles’ eyes and knots it at the back of his head.

“If you see where we’re going, you’re going to know what it is.” Stiles feels the car turn on, hears Derek switch into reverse, and then they’re moving. “I spent a lot of time and money on this, and you’re not going to guess it before you see it. Over my dead body.”

All the same, Stiles tries to guess it on the car ride over.

“It’s a puppy,” he says, and Derek says no. “It’s a really really big cake that you had specially made because you know I like oversized food,” and Derek says no. “It’s a pony?” No. “It’s a new phone.” No. “It’s a really big fish tank filled with all kinds of tropical fish because you knew I was going to get you the sentimental blue fish.” No.

Stiles thumps his head back on the seat and puffs out his lips, agitated. “Well, fuck me, then!”

It’s annoying to not be able to see Derek’s face when he speaks. “That’s the plan.”

“Oho, wait –“ Stiles twists in his seat and faces Derek even with his eyes covered, pointlessly. “It’s something to do with sex. Okay, let me think.” He taps his chin. “You got me a new dildo.”

“You think I’m driving you all the way to the outskirts of town for a dildo in a box? What, did I bury it in the woods?”

“I wouldn’t put that past you,” Stiles counters, and Derek chuffs like it’s all so dumb. “Can I have a hint?”

“No hints.”

“Daddy.”

“We’re about ten minutes away. No hints.”

Stiles pouts and leans back in his seat, overwhelmed with the urge to reach up and rip the blindfold off his face to try and get an idea of where they’re going just from their surroundings. He thinks for a second that since he’s hands aren’t tied he really, really could do exactly that – but then he knows Derek would be angry and he’d turn the car around and Stiles would lose present rights. So he just sits still and taps his fingers on his knee.

“Is it a pool?” He tries, and Derek sighs.

Sometime later, the smooth drive of what felt like the highway is gone. They slow, slow, slow, and Derek takes a sharp left turn. “Almost there,” he announces, making another turn onto another smooth road. They drive along at a slow pace for a minute or two, and then the car is stopping with a gentle hiss of the brakes.

Stiles hears Derek open and close his own door as he gets out, and then Stiles’ door is being opened for him and Derek is taking him by the shoulders to guide him out. The door closes behind him, and Stiles is lead forward by Derek’s hands. “I can’t even take the thing off now?”

“No. Thirty more seconds.”

They walk. Stiles nearly trips over his own feet, but Derek catches him right on time – then they stop, and Derek is jingling keys. He unlocks something, hopefully a door, and then Stiles is lead into a room that smells eerily familiar.

He pads in and his footsteps echo. “Huh,” he says, and it echoes again. “This isn’t an airplane hangar, is it?”

“No. But close.”

Before Stiles can even begin to dissect that statement, Derek arranges Stiles so he’s facing a certain direction and whips the blindfold off lightning quick. “Ta-da,” he says, while Stiles’ eyes focus and settle on something right in front of him.

It’s a shiny, shiny blue car with a big red bow on the front of it. They are in Derek’s garage, which is why it smelled familiar because Stiles has been here before and should’ve fucking known, and that’s a car. Stiles is standing in front of a brand new fucking car with a bow on it, and Derek is standing there waiting for a reaction, and Stiles just blinks. “That’s not…”

“Yeah,” Derek corrects. “It is.”

“But –“

“I got it for you about a month ago,” he explains, walking forward and patting the car on its hood. “It’s fresh off the show room floor, 2017 –“

“I’m…”

“…and it’s not a luxury car because I knew that would bother you. It’s a smarter car than that. It’s fuel efficient, it’s got great safety ratings –“

“I’m saving up for a car,” he says, because that’s all he can think to say. “I’ve been saving for a year.”

Derek leans up against the hood of the car, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking. “I took care of it for you. I told you I didn’t like you riding that train.”

There’s this second of time, where Stiles is still trying to process it. All the gifts he’s been given in his life, none of them could hold a candle to this one – and it’s not just about the fact that it was expensive. Expensive to Derek is like catnip. The most over the top, extravagant thing he can do, that’s all he wants to do, no questions asked.

It’s not really about that. It’s about a huge weight being lifted off his shoulders not having to squirrel money away like nuts anymore, and now that money is just extra money he has to put away in his savings or use for a little wiggle room on rent every month for a while, or whatever. And, plus, he has a fucking car, now. He doesn’t have to take the train with his panties in a backpack while ugly fifty-five year old men try to hit on him because they can just tell he’s a homo, or take the train that smells like piss while he’s trying to eat dinner after a long, hard day, or take the stupid train to his even stupider fucking job.

Stiles runs and leaps at Derek, full speed, wrapping his limbs around him like an octopus clinging to prey. He squeezes, stuffing his face into Derek’s neck, while Derek lifts him up by his hips and cradles him against his body. “Daddy, daddy, daddy, holy shit –“ Stiles chants, in a state of disbelief. “Holy shit, holy shit – daddy.”

“I knew you’d like it,” is all he has to say on the matter, and Stiles can hear the fucking grin in his voice.

“You got me a car.”

“I did.”

“It’s blue.”

“It is blue.”

“I’m so happy right now.” He kisses Derek on the cheek, rubbing against him with his hair. “Let me down, let me down, I wanna look at it.”

Derek releases Stiles with a plop of his feet on the ground, and Stiles takes the time to walk all the way around the car, slowly. “I got it registered in your name already,” Derek says when he notices Stiles eyeballing the license plate. “We just need to get your insurance up and running and then you’ll be good to go. So you can’t drive it just yet, but –“

Stiles runs his fingers along the sleek paint, licking his lips, transfixed. “How did you know I’d want it to be blue?”

Derek shrugs. “You’ve shown me pictures of your mom’s old Jeep, so I just sort of figured.”

“Oh, my God.” He stops, taking in the full sight of the thing again, and he just can’t wrap his brain around the fact that this is his. That Derek is just giving this to him, all expenses already paid for, and he doesn’t have to pay a single dime of his money. It’s brand new and shiny and Stiles wants to jizz just looking at it. “You deserve all the fucking thanks I can give you, I don’t even know where to start.”

Derek just stands there, and Stiles looks at him. They stare at one another, and then Stiles’ lips start to quirk upwards – Derek knows what he’s thinking. He couldn’t possibly be thinking anything else. This is their relationship, after all, so of course, Stiles knows exactly where to start with thanking Derek.

Stiles takes him by his shoulders and pushes him back up against the car, before dropping down onto his knees and fumbling with Derek’s belt and pants button. Derek looks down and watches him with this smug expression that just says he knows he’s earned the shit out of this, and that he honestly expected nothing more and nothing less from Stiles in response.

He pulls Derek’s half-chub out into the air and Stiles knows he was just getting hard with the knowledge that he’s rich and powerful and can do things like buy his boyfriend a brand new car without batting an eyelash. The things that get Derek off sometimes astound Stiles, but at this point, Stiles is just…used to it. He strokes it up to full hardness, looking up at Derek through his eyelashes to find Derek staring right back down at him. Stiles wets his lips, waiting for instruction.

Derek says, “hands behind your back,” and Stiles does exactly that. He takes his wrist in his opposite hand against the small of his back and kneels there with Derek’s erection in his face, staring and waiting. “Go on.”

Stiles leans forward and takes Derek into his mouth, sucking him down as far as is physically possible. Derek puts his hands in Stiles’ hair and breathes out in satisfaction through his nose. When Stiles looks up, he finds his head tossed back, lips parted, eyes closed. And Stiles is, really, just glad to be able to serve Derek like this after the man literally bought him a car. He deserves a little submissiveness on Stiles’ part.

Or, a lot. The lucky thing for both of them is that Stiles is more than happy to oblige.


	6. Two truths and a lie.

“Daily Beacon, this is Stiles how can I help you?” Stiles taps his fingers on top of his desk and breathes a sigh through his nose. “Yup, it’s five ninety-nine a month for a subscription. I agree it is a bit high, but the quality of the – yup. There are other cheaper newspapers you could subscribe to, I agree, but for the real – mmhmm. I understand. Yes. There are no special deals running right now, no. Mmmhm. Yeah. Absolutely, I’ll alert the presses. Yup. Have a good day.” He presses the hang up button on his headset and screams behind his teeth, gripping the edge of his desk. The monotony, at some point, has to end – but it’s been a year, and still he’s had the exact same conversation with sixteen thousand other people before, and it just never fucking stops.

The phone rings again and he turns his eyes to the ceiling, praying for strength. “Daily Beacon, this is Stiles how can I help you? Yeah, an issue every morning. Mmmhmm. Uh – depends on where you live? Usually before eleven.” He turns his eyes to the glass doors of the foyer where his prison of a desk resides, balancing a pen in between his fingers. Right on time, because they open to reveal Derek Hale walking inside, carrying a rustling plastic bag with a pair of sunglasses on his face.

Stiles sits up straighter and his heart flutters, licking his lips. “I can – yeah, if you live within two miles, you’ll be getting the first of the lot. Uh-huh. It’s no problem, have a good day.” He hangs up, right as Derek is coming to a stop in front of his desk, putting his hand and the plastic bag on the ledge where Stiles keeps his bowl of mints and lollipops. “Hi,” he says, a little breathy. “What are you doing here?”

Derek pats the plastic bag. “I brought you lunch.”

“Oh, yes,” Stiles fist pumps. “I’m starving. I was just gonna go hobble across the street for a Subway sammy.” He peers into the plastic bag and sees a Styrofoam container marked chicken alfredo and he nearly orgasms. “Oh, man. You know me too well.”

“I also wanted to see where you spend your days,” he says, gazing around himself with a shrewd, calculating look. He looks at the wall where all the newspapers’ awards are lined up, looks at the potted plants and the long hallway that leads off to ringing telephones and people hurrying around or dicking off by the water cooler.

“It’s not so exciting,” Stiles says, shrugging his shoulders. His phone rings, and he gives Derek a look, before pressing the answer button on his headset and huffing. “Daily Beacon, this is Stiles, how can I help you?” Derek stares at him, a smile curling up on his lips. “You never got your paper this morning. Uh-huh. Did you update your subscription? Well, did you buy a six month or a twelve month? You don’t know. Well one is nine ninety-nine and the other – yes. No, I understand.” He gives Derek a look that reads kill me, and Derek huffs a laugh. “Absolutely. I can patch you through to our subscriptions department, they might be more help than I am. Yes. I understand. Let me just – I’m gonna send you over there, okay? Hold on.” He leans over his phone and presses some buttons, listens to the rinnngg rinnng on the other end, and doesn’t hang up until he hears Marsha answer in her perky customer service voice.

“This place is really starting to wear me out,” Stiles says, thumping back down into his swivel chair and rubbing a hand down his face. “No one ever calls me to tell me I’m doing a good job. I just get attacked by the masses, day in, day out.”

Derek frowns, but says nothing. “I came to see if you had time to eat with me.”

Looking at the time on his desktop computer, he nods his head. “It’s just about lunch break time.” He stands, leaning over his desk to try and peer into where his boss is sitting in his office with his door wide open. “Uh, sir? I’m going on lunch.”

“You got it,” comes the responding voice, and Stiles hastily rips his headset off like it was a noose choking him to death and throws it on top of his desk without a second thought.

“C’mon. There’s a nice courtyard around the back.”

As Stiles leads him down the halls of his office building, just going past the subscriptions department where he can hear Marsha trying to explain for what might be the tenth time the difference between the six-month and the twelve-month, he chatters a bit excitedly. “Man, this morning I got up like, forty-five minutes later than I used to have to, and I got in my car with air conditioning, and listened to my tunes, had time to stop at Starbucks for a coffee – it was fantastic.” He pushes out the doors into the courtyard with all the chittering birds and the stone benches, picks one, and hunkers down on it.

Derek follows suit, squinting up at the sun through his glasses. “So you like your car.”

“Uh, it’s a car,” Stiles snorts, prying open his food and inhaling the scent of cheese and pasta and chicken. “Mmmm…you are so good to me.” He picks up his plastic fork and starts digging in, rolling up a huge mound of noodles and shoving them into his mouth unceremoniously. “So – you’re not working today?” He asks, mouth full.

“I’m going back in later. I just wanted to come see you at your job.” He looks around himself, and then he takes his sunglasses off and sticks them into the front of his shirt, likely so he can look Stiles directly in the eye. “Listen. When are we going to get around to polishing up your resume and getting your portfolio ready?”

Embarrassed and a little miffed, Stiles focuses all his attention on his food and pokes his fork around, shrugging noncommittally. “Ah – I don’t know.”

Derek is quiet for a moment, like he’s assessing Stiles’ reaction. “This was a good right after college job to get your foot in the door,” he says, and Stiles swallows his food and doesn’t meet Derek’s eyes. “But you’re not happy here, and you don’t make enough money, and I don’t see why you don’t at least go out and try to find something better.”

“Maybe I’m scared, you know?” He admits, shrugging his shoulders again as a way to make what he says seem less serious. “Like, I’m not good enough to be anything but a secretary.”

“That’s not true.”

“You have to say that. You’re sleeping with me,” he bites into a hunk of chicken a bit vindictively. “It’d be pretty sad if you thought I was an idiot, too.”

Derek looks away from him for a moment, sucking in a deep breath as he looks across the courtyard to where a tree is waving its leaves in the gentle breeze. His jaw ticks, and then he looks back to meet Stiles’ eyes. “You’re going to do it. I don’t want to hear an argument.”

“But –“

“Stiles.” His voice is stern, and firm, and Stiles always knows – always – when Derek isn’t playing around with him. He gets that set to his face, that and that’s final look, and his jaw clenches and he just laser-eyes his way right through Stiles’ skull. “You deserve better than this job. You’re going to go home tonight and work on your resume and your portfolio and send me what you get done. You understand?”

Feeling very small, even while he knows that Derek is absolutely and positively right, he puckers his lips as he looks down into his food. He rolls a piece of chicken around in the pasta and sauce for a moment, quiet. Then, he says, “yes, sir,” in a low voice.

Derek’s hand comes up to rub him on his back, up and down. The thing about Derek is that he has very rarely ever plays the I’m in charge card. For all intents and purposes, he is in charge of the entire relationship. That’s what Stiles signed on for. Derek is the guy who buys Stiles’ things and takes Stiles out and dresses him up and holds him down and gets him on his knees.

But he nearly never, for lack of a better word, doms Stiles into doing something that’s outside of the realm of sex; unless it’s something that’s for Stiles’ own good. Even though Stiles is terrified and he really, really doesn’t want to do it and he doesn’t want to fail and humiliate himself, Derek has put his foot down, and he’s given his final word, and Stiles will do it whether he likes it or not.

Derek kisses him on the temple and squeezes his shoulder. “You are going to be a real writer. Okay?”

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, a bit reluctantly.

“Okay,” Derek pats him on the back and pulls his sunglasses back onto his face, now that the serious conversation is over with.

***

Daddy, 9:34 PM : Your resume is really very good. I’d hire you.  
Me, 9:36 PM : You’re so BIASED!!!!!  
Me, 9:36 PM : You ; hires me to suck you off under your desk  
Daddy, 9:38 PM : I can separate my enjoyment of fucking you senseless and my critique of your work into compartments, you know. You’ve got good things here.  
Daddy, 9:39 PM : And your writing samples are fantastic. I can’t believe you ever settled for that idiotic secretary’s job.  
Me, 9:41 PM : Well the jobs weren’t calling and I was broke lmao  
Daddy, 9:45 PM : I’ve got a list of people I want you to send this to. E-mail them out tomorrow.  
Me, 9:47 PM : Okay ):  
Daddy, 9:50 PM : Don’t be nervous. You’re smart and educated and you have experience. Why wouldn’t they want to hire you?  
Me, 9:52 PM : I can think of a few reasons. But let’s not get into that. I’ll email them, I promise. Let’s talk about something else.  
Daddy, 9:54 PM : What are you wearing?  
Me, 9:55 PM : A sexy, revealing pair of pajama pants coupled with my runway charting baggy t-shirt…how hard are you?  
Daddy, 9:56 PM : Rock solid.  
Daddy, 9:57 PM : Hey, listen, I might be a little hard to reach these next couple of days.  
Daddy, 9:57 PM : I’ve got these clients coming in from out of town who are sort of a big deal. I might not even have the time to text much.  
Me, 9:58 PM : Aw, man.  
Daddy, 10:01 PM : I know, it’s bullshit. But work is work, and I have to see them.  
Daddy, 10:02 PM : But I love you, and I’ll be thinking about you.  
Me, 10:04 PM : Love you too!!!! A lootttt  
***

Derek bursts into Stiles’ bedroom past midnight two nights later, just thumping the door open so loud it smacks against the opposite wall. Stiles is startled, but only by the loud noise. He had honestly expected to see Derek coming around at some point, which was his entire plan in the first place.  
He’s in a black button down, black slacks, and black shoes. He looks like walking sex and Stiles bites his lip as he steps into the room, footsteps heavy and sure. He says, “really.” No inflection.

Stiles sits up from where he had been lying back on his pillow fiddling with his phone, and lifts his eyebrows.

“Really?” Derek repeats, taking another step closer. “You really sent me that shit when you knew I’d be busy?”

Stiles bites down on his forefinger and shrugs. “I was bored,” he says, all the innocence in the world, and Derek stares at him some more, like he’s dumbfounded. Stiles grins behind his finger and reflects on what he’d done; and really, he just can’t stop grinning.

He’d sent Derek a picture of himself holding his hard cock in his hand with blue panties tugged down his hips just enough to reveal the entire package. He’d captioned it not until you say so, and apparently, this is a criminal offense.

But Stiles knew what he was doing when he sent it. He knew exactly what the fuck he was doing, and the consequences have arrived, and he can’t stop smiling.

“I was in the middle of an incredibly important meeting,” Derek says, his voice low. “I think you knew that.”

“Am I in trouble?” He asks, standing up from the bed to meet Derek at his eye level. Derek looks him up and down, face unreadable. “Are you going to make me sorry?”

Without any warning, Derek grabs Stiles’ roughly by his arms, so Stiles lets out a small, surprised sound from the back of his throat. He pulls Stiles closer to him, so their lips are almost touching, looking at his face with long rakes of his dark eyes. He says, “is it really trouble if you enjoy every second of it?”

Stiles’ eyes roll back into his head just from the words alone and he pants a bit breathlessly out from between his teeth. He licks his lips and lowers his eyes, before lifting them back up again to look at Derek through the cover of his eyelashes. “Please do bad things to me,” he asks, voice soft and pleading.

Derek smiles, because he never has to be asked twice, not when it comes to Stiles. “As you want it.”

A couple of hours later, Stiles is all wrapped up in his bedsheets, still naked and with a sizeable number of hickeys on his neck, allowing Derek to card his fingers gently through Stiles’ hair. Stiles leans into his touch and cuddles closer onto his chest, sighing in content through his nose as he draws mindless patterns onto Derek’s bare skin with the tip of his finger. “I thought you said you’d be too busy,” Stiles teases him with a light smile, glancing up briefly to Derek’s face.

He has a placid expression on his face, eyes sort of set like he’s very, very tired, but he smiles back. “I’m not typically too busy to come over and fuck you stupid. I’ll carve out the time.”

He licks his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.” It’s funny – Derek really is at Stiles’ beck and call. For all that Derek has so much power in their relationship especially in regards to the sex, Stiles can manipulate the shit out of him, just because Derek is a complete horny idiot. All he ever wants to do is get off, and Stiles uses that to his advantage to get attention even when Derek says he doesn’t have the time. It works, for them. “Hey, did you like that picture?”

“I drove over here at one in the morning because of that picture. Fuck yeah, I liked it.”

Stiles smiles and moves in closer to him, as if it were physically possible. He never wants to leave Derek’s side, not ever – he’s starting to feel insanely in love with him. Like, to the point where he can’t actually imagine not being with him. “Do you keep all those?”

“Of course.”

He sits up a bit, cocking his head to the side and giving Derek a big, lazy smile. “May I see them?”

Huffing a laugh, Derek shrugs like sure why not, and plucks his phone up off the bedside table. He swipes it and pokes around until he’s in his pictures, slowly angling it back so Stiles can see the screen. Stiles watches as he goes through a minimal list of albums until landing on one that reads Baby, poking at it so an entire slew of little boxes appears. Derek hands his phone off, feeling weird in Stiles’ hand – Stiles has the seven, but Derek has the seven plus – and Stiles starts perusing.

“Oh, man,” he starts, swiping right along through them. There’s the one that Stiles sent Derek earlier of course, which makes him blush even though he’s the one who sent that to begin with, and then there’s just…so many more. So fucking many. “This is crazy. This is like going on xtube, dude.”

He swipes and swipes, picture after picture. It’s a good half and half of pictures Stiles has sent himself and pictures that Derek has taken during scenes; there’s a whole fucking lot of pictures of Stiles with come all over him, which Stiles now figures is one of Derek’s particular weirdo kinks that he won’t necessarily vocalize. There’s a bunch of Stiles just tied up, and some of just his lower half, and on and on and on. “We are gross,” Stiles says out loud, to which Derek chuffs again and throws the covers off his body.

“I’m taking a piss,” he grouses, padding over to the door leading out to his hallway. Stiles watches him go and bites his lip, returning his eyes down to the pictures in front of him. There should really be a part of him that’s ashamed of all of this, because like he’s said before; kinks are fun and sexy when you’re in the throes of it and you’re turned on, but later…? It can be really weird to see.

Funnily enough, Stiles isn’t ashamed. For god’s sake, Derek has an entire folder of pictures of Stiles that he fucking jerks off to whenever they can’t see each other. He literally collects these, and as a result, he probably doesn’t even need to look at porn of other people. He’s got porn of Stiles.

He gets to the end of the folder, where the very first picture Stiles ever sent Derek is there and makes him smile with nostalgia. He exits out of the pictures app and goes to Derek’s home screen, about to just turn it off and set it back where it was, but then he pauses. He looks at all the little icons, briefly glancing over to his wide open bedroom door where he can tell that Derek is still in the bathroom with the door shut, and swallows.

It would be really, really nosy and wrong and stupid of him to look through his boyfriend’s phone. It would be so fucking stupid. Stiles shouldn’t do it, under any circumstances.

But all the same, he clicks on the green phone icon and narrows his eyes as he goes through the recent calls list, furrowing his brow. There’s a whole hell of a lot of numbers that Derek hasn’t put in his contacts list – nearly all of the calls he gets are from apparent strangers, or at least, people he doesn’t want in his contacts. There’s the odd call from Baby which Stiles guesses is him, and then a couple from a Lydia Martin and an Erica Reyes, but other than that – mystery.

He bites his lip and glances down the hall again. No signs of movement.

Into the messaging app he goes, feeling ugly and gross inside but also with that familiar thump-thump of excitement in his chest he used to get when he’d do bad things as a kid. Like, going through his dad’s case files or breaking into the liquor cabinet. No doubt about it, if Derek came back in here and found Stiles perusing his phone like it were any of his damn business, Derek would give Stiles his first real punishment. And it wouldn’t be a fun one.

But in Stiles goes, almost fearless, because there are things that make him wonder. There are things that give him pause if he ever stops to think about them for too long. And while Stiles has to believe that Derek only has good intentions and is only who he says he is, because he just has to be, there’s another part of him that questions it all. It’s in his nature. He can’t help it.

The first and most recent text is from Erica Reyes, and it reads : yeah, have fun. Try not to fucking bury us with that idiotic twink. It’s shocking enough that Stiles just sits there and stares at it for what feels like a very, very long time. He doesn’t read any of the other texts around it, so focused on that singular string of words, and he frowns. He knew that Derek’s partners or business associates or whatever didn’t like him – but Jesus. And the most annoying bit of it is that Derek said absolutely nothing back to her. He’s not even going to tell her to not call Stiles a fucking idiotic twink? Really? Their opinions of him must be very, very low.

They likely think he’s some slut sucking all the money out of Derek’s dick. Which…okay. Could be accurate, depending on who you ask.

He’s just about to scroll up in the text thread to see what else has been said, when the bathroom door opens with a creak down the hall. Stiles fumbles the phone so hard he nearly throws it across the room, managing to catch it at the last second. He clicks back to the home screen as Derek’s footsteps approach, and then tosses the phone side after its screen goes dark, letting it drop into the sheets with a plop.

He lies back and tries to look innocent, and then Derek is back. He walks in and gives Stiles a once over, while Stiles just lies there and smiles placidly. “You like what you see?” He asks, gesturing to the phone.

“Uh –“ the pictures. Right. The pictures. “How come I don’t have any of you?” He demands, trying to switch the topic as best he can.

Derek laughs and climbs back into the bed with him, leaning down to kiss him on the lips before settling into the pillows and sighing. “I don’t photograph well,” he says, and Stiles sinks lower into the sheets and feels guilty.

He pulls Stiles against his body and lets loose that long, tired sigh that Stiles has learned means he’s going to try to sleep now, and Stiles burrows into him, but doesn’t close his eyes. He blinks, biting his lip, simultaneously wishing he hadn’t looked at all and wishing he had had more time to look at the rest of the messages.

Derek never mentions having friends. He doesn’t think Erica Reyes is his friend. Or Lydia. Or Boyd. Or even Laura. What he has seem to be business people, and Stiles. And that’s it.

***

“Okay.” Stiles looks Derek right in his face and keeps his own as impassive as possible, sucking in a deep breath. “I haven’t been to the beach in ten years. I love frozen yogurt. I think dogs are better than cats.”  
Derek taps his fingers on his knee and observes him very critically. Stiles raises his eyebrows at him, a smile lighting up his face, and waits. It takes a second, but Derek says, “the last one is the lie.”

Stiles throws his hands up in the air and growls in frustration, amazed. “How do you do that?”

“I’m observant,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and sipping from the beer can he has perched on Stiles’ window sill. “We went to the pet store a month ago and you went bananas for the kittens and the puppies.”

“Okay, genius.” Stiles gives Derek the come on fingers, narrowing his eyes. “Give me some.”

Derek sips his beer again, slapping the can down on the sill and adjusting himself on Stiles’ bed. They’ve been in here for hours, the sun only just now going down, and they’ve done absolutely fucking nothing. They’ve just sat in here talking and day drinking, playing games and looking up videos on the internet. “I like foreign movies. I’ve never been outside the United States. I hate cilantro.”

Stiles rubs his jaw and tries to get a read on Derek’s face – but there’s nothing. It’s a blank slate, an empty wall, and he doesn’t even crack underneath Stiles’ gaze. He’s the immortal champion of staring contests, Stiles is certain of it. “The first one is the lie.”

Derek’s lips quirk upwards and he slowly shakes his head. “I’ve been to ten different countries.”

“Fuck. You.” If there was a board for him to flip over, or even a table, Stiles would be doing it right about now. “I’m done with this game.”

“You’re a sore loser,” Derek taunts. “It’s not my fault you don’t know me at all.”

“It’s not my fault that you don’t tell me anything,” Stiles shoots back rapid fire, and Derek raises his eyebrows all shocked.

“You really are a sore loser, Jesus Christ.”

“What foreign movies have you seen?”

Listing them off on his fingers as he goes, Derek says, “Let the Right One In, The Lives of Others, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night –“

“Shut up, just shut your mouth –“ Stiles reaches out and claps his palm over Derek’s face, frowning. “You don’t know me better than I know you.”

“Try me,” Derek muffles out from behind Stiles’ hand, and Stiles is all too happy to oblige.

“What’s my favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“When’s my birthday?”

“October 19th.”

“What’s my favorite flavor of ice cream?”

“Phish food from Ben and Jerry’s.” He pushes Stiles’ hand away from his face, so Stiles can see that he’s grinning, all proud of himself. “Now answer all those for me.”

“Your favorite color,” Stiles starts, imperious, “is green.” Derek nods. “Your birthday is December 22nd.” Another nod. “Your favorite flavor of ice cream…is chocolate.”

“You just pulled that right out of your ass, didn’t you?”

Stiles growls and pounds his fist on his bed. “I’ve never seen you eat ice cream!”

“Yes, you have.”

“When?” Stiles’ voice is rising, but Derek is smiling, like he thinks this entire thing is funny. It is, on some level, but Stiles is moderately annoyed, because he’s petulant and stubborn and hates being bested.

“When we went downtown and you got sick because you ate too much pizza –“

“I don’t remember that.” Stiles does remember that.

“…and you threw up in the trashcan outside of the casino…”

“It doesn’t ring any bells!”

“…and I was still hungry, and there was an ice cream place right next door…”

“You don’t know me better!” Stiles insists, and Derek holds his hand out in front of him, turning it from back to front.

“I know you like this.” He waves the hand around, and Stiles holds his own out and waves it frantically.

“I know you like this! I bet there’s nothing important that I don’t know about you.”

Derek abruptly isn’t smiling so much anymore. He clears his throat and looks down, reaching out to take his beer in hand again. He purses his lips and shrugs. “Except my favorite ice cream.”

“I said important,” Stiles reminds him a bit hotly, and Derek sighs through his nose and then raises a single hand in the air as if raising a white flag.

“All right. We know each other an equal amount. This is getting ugly.”

Stiles hurrumphs, crossing his arms over his chest and glowering down at his bedding. He knows Derek very, very well, all things considered. Better than most people. Maybe not better than his mysterious compadres that he works with, and maybe not as well as the even more mysterious sister Laura, but well. The big difference is that Stiles talks more and gives out information like it’s candy, yammering on about this that and the other thing, while Derek is a lot more reserved and stoic. He doesn’t announce his favorite flavor of ice cream as if it fucking matters; but Stiles has probably announced it from a mountain top before, if not more than once.

“Remind me not to get into competitions with you again,” Derek says, finishing his drink and tossing the empty can into Stiles’ waste basket with a soft clink.

Stiles is just about to open his mouth to say something else, when the doorbell rings. He blinks, surprised, because no one ever really comes calling to Scott and Stiles’ house unannounced, and he and Derek meet eyes. “Did you…?” Stiles starts to ask, because it wouldn’t be shocking if Derek had ordered something to be sent here and it’s not a ridiculous question. But Derek shakes his head, just as mystified as Stiles it would seem, and Stiles hefts himself off the bed and pulls his bedroom door open, muttering about Jehovah’s witnesses.

Derek is hot on his heels, likely just to come downstairs to get another beer or snack on something in the kitchen, and they trudge down the stairs in a single file line, creaking the entire way. The front door sits in a small foyer at the very base of the stairs, so Stiles is upon it before Derek is even all the way down the steps.

Stiles pulls it open, and his father is standing there in full Sheriff’s regalia with his hands on his utility belt, and he nearly has a seizure at the sight of him. “Dad,” he says, surprised. Behind him, he hears Derek’s footsteps freezing.

“Stiles,” his father repeats back to him in the same tone of voice, and then smiles. “Long time no see.” His eyes drift behind him, over Stiles’ shoulder, and Stiles knows without even looking that Derek is right there in plain fucking sight, and the whole situation just got very, very awkward.

Stiles has told his father that he’s seeing someone. But he’s been using the vague card. He’s been using the vague card a lot. He’s told his father that he’s got a boyfriend and yes he’s very nice and yes he’s got a real job and isn’t a loser and yes he’s from Beacon Hills and yes he went to college and no he’s not that much older than Stiles, and that his name is Derek and he’s a bit wealthy.

The details? None. None whatsoever. When it comes to his dad, Stiles has a tendency to either tell-all or tell nearly nothing. He’s not a liar in the strictest sense, but he bends the truth like he’s on the fucking gymnastics team, especially with his dad. When your father is strict, that’s just what you do, even well into your adult years and long after you’ve moved out. Frankly, Stiles had been more or less keeping the two of them apart out of fear of what the Sheriff’s reaction to Derek would be. More the point, he was nervous about having to explain what Derek really is to him.

“Ah…” Stiles rubs at the back of his head, turning around to find Derek standing there with the oddest expression Stiles thinks he’s ever seen on the guy’s face. He’s all wide-eyed and slack jawed, like he’s been caught in the act just from having the Sheriff look at him. Like he’s already done something wrong, and it’s not just the look of a boyfriend afraid to meet the father.

There’s something else there that Stiles can’t quite put his finger on, and doesn’t have the time to truly examine.

“Dad, this is my uh – this is Derek. I’ve told you about him.” Stiles steps aside a bit so that the two of them can really look at each other, and there’s a very long, very pregnant silence. Stiles scrambles to fill it before it gets any worse. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“Right.” His dad is stepping inside, all the way, so Stiles has no choice but to back away from the door and let him invade the space without asking. “I’ve been hearing the rumblings for months.”

Derek arranges himself so he’s facing the Sheriff all the way, and he clears his throat. He sticks his hand out, and the Sheriff does the same, and then they’re shaking while Stiles just stands there and watches, ping-ponging his eyes between the two men. A thought occurs to him, entirely unbidden, that the man he calls dad and another he calls daddy are standing in the exact same room right now.

A hole is appearing in the vortex of time. Stiles thinks about shooting himself in the foot.

“Derek Hale,” Derek says, voice low and smooth.

“John Stilinski,” his dad says back, and Stiles bites on his thumb and stares. Their hands separate, and immediately his dad’s is on his gun, resting lightly. Stiles has no idea if that’s intentional or just habit. He really doesn’t want to think about too much.

They stare at each other for a moment, and the awkwardness is so heavy Stiles thinks he could drown in it. He speaks up. “I’m surprised to see you,” he cuts in, and his dad looks at him. “I mean – not that you’re unwelcome. But uh…”

“Just figured I’d come by and see what’s doing,” he says, trailing his eyes over to where Derek is still standing. Ramrod straight, shoulders bunched, his face unreadable. “I haven’t seen a lot of you. I guess I know why.”

“Ah…” Stiles rubs the back of his head again.

All attention and heat is driven away from Stiles as the Sheriff starts eyeballing Derek again, and there’s really nothing Stiles can do about that. The grilling process is something that comes entirely natural to his father after years of being a police officer, and he’ll get his questions in whether Stiles has something to say about it or not. “Derek,” he starts, and Stiles swallows and twiddles his fingers nervously. “That your car parked out front?”

The fucking Audi. Jesus fucking Christ…

“Yes.”

His fingers tap on his belt, his eyes shrewd. “Expensive piece of machinery, that.”

“My family’s old money.” It’s the most dickish, stupidest fucking thing to say. It makes him seem like a complete asshole, and Stiles has half a mind to jab his foot down on Derek’s toes.

“So you’re a trust fund kid.”

Derek does not smile. He has no expression on his face. “I did have a trust fund. I also made a good lump sum off of insurance money,” he squares his shoulders even more, as if preparing himself for a fight or something. “Maybe the last name Hale rings a bell.”

It must. It has to. Of course his father would remember a big fire like that, because from what little Derek had told him about it, it would’ve happened in the definite time frame when his dad was just a deputy. He might’ve been there that night, on the scene. He might’ve met Derek as a teenager all those years ago. But his father’s expression doesn’t change, and he doesn’t seem sympathetic – he just stares and curls his upper lip a bit.

Changing the subject away from that particularly unfortunate one, his dad goes on. “Stiles says you make a lot of money, doing what you do.”

Derek’s jaw ticks. “I do.”

“Which is…”

“I’m a financial advisor.”

“Interesting stuff,” Stiles interrupts, feeling the need to take a step closer to where the two men are standing. He almost stands right in between them. “Derek has money from a boring job, blah blah. He also is very important to me,” Stiles emphasizes this, and then turns to look at Derek, “and my father is my father.”

The unspoken is there. There’s tension in the air for reasons Stiles can only guess at, and they evidently have met one another, exchanged words, and now dislike each other on fucking sight. Derek said stupid shit on his first impression and is acting absolutely bizarre, and his dad is looking at him like he strongly suspects Derek is an absolute asshole and not worthy of Stiles’ time no matter what’s going on in his wallet, and now the entire thing has gone to hell in a hand basket in less than five minutes. So now Stiles has to step in and remind everyone that, hey, he’s the shared variable between the two of them, and they’re the two most important men in his life, and they’re being assholes.

“Let’s have a beer.” His dad suggests this, and Stiles wants to kick the wall. The last thing he wants to do is have this conversation go on any longer than it already has, but here he is, and he can’t very well kick his dad out.

“Sure,” Derek agrees, and he’s still got that completely empty expression on. It’s like he’s wearing a mask, or something. This is not the Derek he’s familiar with.

They shuffle into the kitchen, open beers, and then stand there in the tiny room in a small circle. Stiles drinks his lightning fast, chugging it down as if searching in the liquid for some source of strength. Really, he wishes he were being buried alive right now.

“Dad,” Stiles prompts, and he does not at all miss the way that Derek almost fucking responds to it, “did you just get off shift, or are you about to go in…?”

“I just got off.” Not the answer that Stiles wanted. Not at all. The distraction does absolutely nothing to disengage the situation, however, because as soon as the answer is out of his mouth, his dad’s eyes are back on Derek like lasers. “Financial advising, huh?”

Derek just nods his head, sipping his beer and staring right back with a cool gaze.

“Stiles wants to be a writer.”

“I know,” Derek’s answer is quick, charged with venom – there’s a hidden of course I fucking know that in between the lines. Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose and wants to vanish, just fucking evaporate.

Silence, silence, and then, “how did you two meet?”

Stiles nearly gets beer up his nose and turns into a coughing, sputtering mess, drawing his dad’s attention. He gets a narrow-eyed, suspicious look, but Derek doesn’t pay Stiles next to any mind. He just lifts his chin in the air and shrugs a single shoulder. “Dating website.”

“Really,” he draws the word out nice and long, sliding his eyes over to where Stiles is still trying to recover, a couple of tears in his eyes from the coughing fit. “You didn’t mention doing that.”

“Well,” he half-chokes out, patting his chest a couple of times to clear out the residual coughs. “It was uh – you know. I just sorta did it. And Derek was like – well.” He never thought up a cover story for what to tell his dad. It’s not a lie, because it was a dating website, but…Jesus. “We just hit it off. We get along super well, he’s great,” Stiles feels the need to defend Derek – or at least, the Derek that he knows – and so he does, babbling on without anyone to stop him. “We’re a lot alike and he’s well read and he gets my references and we’re…you know.”

Like Stiles has said nothing, nothing at all, the Sheriff goes back at it. “You staying here now, or…?”

Unbelievably, Derek scoffs. He literally honest to fucking God scoffs. It’s a shocking enough sound and response that Stiles turns on him, full body, head twisted and face scrunched like are you fucking serious? “I live in Beacon Terrace.”

His dad whistles low, raising his eyebrows. “Fancy place.”

“It sure is. All that dirty trust fund money from when my family burned to death, you know –“

“Holy shit,” Stiles mutters and palms his face, a little shell-shocked. “Let’s back up.”

“Hale money does tend to have quite a bit of dirt on it, doesn’t it?” His father spits, and then things are out of Stiles’ control. There’s nothing he can do to fix this, so he just stands there and clutches his beer and doesn’t know what to say.

Derek laughs. This low, sarcastic bitter thing that makes Stiles feel strange and uncomfortable, because it’s so unlike Derek to make a noise like that. “I make my money myself and you know what?” He thwaps his beer down on the counter, leaning back up against it and looking haughty as all fucking get out, “your son doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with it.”

“Stiles,” his dad blurts out, loud and thundering in the cramped kitchen. Stiles startles and crinkles his beer can; for the past ten minutes it’s like he’s barely existed at all, and now his dad is addressing him. Still, not looking at him. He keeps his eyes on Derek, like any second a physical altercation is about to break out. He says, “can I speak to you for a minute?”

Stiles is all too happy to get away from this entire fucking conversation and to separate these two, so he goes. He puts his beer down on the kitchen table, turns to leave while shooting a dangerous look in Derek’s direction that Derek returns with a cool gaze, and follows his dad out into the living room.

Once they’re alone and Derek is behind the closed door, his dad starts in on him. “What are you doing with this guy?” He demands, pointing a finger at the wall. “When you said you were dating someone, you neglected to mention the part where it was Derek Hale.”

Stiles holds his hands out like what the fuck? “What? Do you know him or something? What the hell was that in there?”

His father looks at him and opens and closes his mouth, again and again. It’s like he can’t even get started, can’t find the words, doesn’t know where to begin. He shakes his head again and again, paces across the room once to stand at the window, staring out and frowning across the street. He puts his hands back on his hips, shaking his head some more, his lips in a firm line, all while Stiles stares at his back and feels like he’s just fucking missing something, here.

When he turns back around, his face is grave. Deathly serious. He says, “I don’t want you seeing him anymore.”

“Oh, my God.” Stiles throws his hands in the air like he just can’t believe it, because he just can’t. “I’m not sixteen, holy shit. What is it about him that you hate so much? Is it that he has money?”

“The money,” his father repeats, guffawing like it’s so idiotic.

“Well then what?”

“That man comes from a family that has nothing good attached to its name,” he says, and Stiles hadn’t known that. Why would he know that? The name Hale never rang any bells in his head, and he can’t for the life of him remember ever having heard it before he met Derek. Beacon Hills is a small city, but it’s not that small.

“So what?” Stiles is defensive, even with no leg to stand on and no clue what they’re actually talking about. “He’s not whatever his family did that you’re so fucking –“

“I just don’t think you know him as well as you think you do.”

And that’s like a slap in the face. It stings, and Stiles blinks in the wake of it. Silence crosses over them and Stiles feels like there’s a spotlight on his face, people waiting for him to react in an audience, and Stiles can’t argue it. There have always been things that Stiles hasn’t known about Derek, yes, but he…he knows Derek, the parts of him that matter, the things that make Derek Derek. He knows him.

He does. He has to. Because Derek knows Stiles. In the most intimate possible way, he does, and it wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t be fair, if there was a whole ‘nother side to Derek that Stiles had never even guessed at.

“You’re an adult,” his father’s voice is low, and he’s turning to walk out the door. Away from Stiles, and the situation, and Derek, and all of it. “Do what you want.”

His footsteps sound loud in Stiles’ ears, and then the door is slamming shut and Stiles is flinching. He hovers in his living room only for a moment, breathing out through his nose and shaking his head. He hates fighting with his dad, almost more than anything in the world.

For a long time, his dad was all he had. And Stiles is all his father has. In the whole entire world.

With that in mind, Stiles sucks in a deep breath and turns on his heel. He pushes through the door back into the kitchen, where Derek is still leaning up against the counter. But this time, he doesn’t look so fucking smug and arrogant – he looks like himself again. As if now that the Sheriff is gone, the entire façade is down and he’s the actual person that Stiles fell in love with and not that fucking person that just did all of that and made all that bullshit happen. Not that his dad was helping, mind you, but…

Stiles holds his hands out. He stands, holds his hands out, and says nothing. It’s like he can’t find the words. “Why would you do that?” He asks, and his voice is quiet. It’s hurt, upset, and Derek knows that, and he looks smaller for it. “Why would you – who were you just now?”

“Baby,” Derek starts, his hand coming out in that way it does whenever he’s about to tell Stiles what’s what, or give him an order, or be the one who’s in charge.

But this is not a situation like that. Derek is not in control of this.

“No,” Stiles says, shaking his head. “No, don’t baby me. The way you just acted, it’s like you were a different person. And that’s my father. That’s not some douche friend I have that you don’t have to get along with or some random guy, that was my dad.”

“You need to understand –“

“I don’t need to understand anything,” he hisses, and his voice is still that quiet, hushed thing. He can’t afford the energy to yell at Derek, or to fight with him, and frankly, he just doesn’t think he wants to. Not right now. He takes in another breath, and remembers what Derek had told him the last time they had an argument; so he explains. “You need to understand that my father is the most important person in the world to me, and I know you know that, and you stood there and talked to him that way. I don’t care what weird thing he has with your family or whatever the hell he was just talking about –“ Derek palms his face, looks down at the ground, “…the fact that you could act like that is – I just – what’s the matter with you?”

“It’s complicated –“

“I don’t want to see you right now,” Stiles says, final and sure, and Derek’s lips part. How he can be surprised by that is beyond Stiles. It really is. “I don’t want to talk to you. I’m so angry with you I can’t even look at you.”

“If you would let me explain –“

“I don’t want to hear it!” Stiles snaps, and Derek shuts his mouth. “What, are you two different people?”

Derek stands against Stiles’ counter and swallows. He looks down at the floor and then across the room and puts his hand over his mouth, and his eyes are a bit glazed over. He says nothing for what seems like a long time, and Stiles has nothing else to say, really, and so they stew in the bitter silence.

“I want you to go,” Stiles says, and Derek does what Stiles asks him to. He walks out the door, he goes, and then Stiles is alone in his empty house, looking down at his feet.

The question that should have come months ago but that Stiles ignored in favor of focusing on the love and the attention and the money only just now surfaces at the back of his mind. It asks – who is he, really?, and the scariest part is, Stiles doesn’t have an answer. It's possible that he never did.


	7. Burn after reading.

Daddy, 6:45 PM : Do you want to talk yet?   
Daddy, 1:32 AM : I have a lot to say, so whenever you’re ready.   
Daddy, 7:20 PM : Please just come over and talk to me. I know I let you down, and I fucked up, but I can explain everything. I can’t have you be angry with me like this, please let me apologize.   
Me, 7:34 PM : What are you going to do, buy me something so I’ll just forget all about it?   
Daddy, 7:35 PM : Baby, I’m begging you. Ten minutes. Please.

***

Derek pulls open the door seconds after Stiles knocks. He has the key card, yes, but he doesn’t know if he really feels like using it, right now. It feels like using it would mean that they’re still in a relationship.  
He doesn’t know if they are. He doesn’t know what he wants, what he thinks, or what the fuck is going on with them.

He walks inside, arms folded across his chest, and Derek closes the door behind them. When Stiles really looks at him, in person for the first time in days, he sees that Derek honestly doesn’t look great. He doesn’t look great at all. He’s got dark circles like he’s been losing sleep, and his hair is all disheveled like he’s spent the last twenty minutes running his fingers through it in anxiety for Stiles getting here, pacing back and forth, rehearsing exactly what he’s going to say again and again.

Stiles likely doesn’t look so great himself. He’s spent a lot of time playing and replaying what happened in his head, analyzing things that both his father and Derek had said, trying to make sense of any of it. He couldn’t come up with an answer, so he’d lie awake in his bed staring at his ceiling. Angry, but wishing he were in Derek’s bed instead all the same.

Derek takes him by his shoulder and ushers him to the couch, where they sit. Seeing as how Derek is the one who literally begged Stiles to come here in the first place, Stiles refuses to speak first. Instead, he just sits there and waits, barely looking in Derek’s direction in favor of staring at his shoes or at the wall or at his hands in his lap.

For a moment, there’s quiet. And then Derek sucks in a deep breath and holds his hands out, as if he’s about to just lay everything out there on the table. “First of all,” he begins, “I don’t have an excuse for the way I handled that situation. You have to agree your father wasn’t exactly being a saint,” and yes, yes Stiles does have to agree with that, “…but I reacted terribly and I didn’t start the conversation off in a particularly pleasant way myself. I apologize. I know how close you and your dad are, and I never meant to do that to you.”

“Second of all, those things your father said to you about – about my family’s name. And where I come from and what I come from and how my money is dirty.” He runs his hand over his face and looks a bit stricken, or at least unsure of where to begin. He takes another breath and bites the bullet. “The money from my trust fund, and my inheritance, and what I got from the bank accounts and the will after the fire happened…that – that money. It came from the family business.”

The family business. Stiles is about to ask if Derek is referring to the fact that he comes from a long line of financial advisors, but Derek continues before he gets the chance.

“My family’s business dates back a very, very long time. We operated mostly in drug trade. We produced product. We sold product. The money that I was given – there’s a lot of blood on that money. My name is dirty, and I come from a background that doesn’t mesh with the kind of background that your father likely comes from. I’m from the system that your father hates, and my money comes from that same system, and my entire life is defined by that.”

Throughout this entire speech, Stiles just stared at him. He understood the words, yes, but it’s like it wasn’t clicking inside of his brain. There’s…so much to focus on. There are so many words, so many things for him to understand, so many variables to what Derek just said, and his brain won’t add any of it up. He rejects it, almost instantaneously.

A laugh bubbles up from his throat and he gives Derek a look like be serious. When Derek just sits there looking at him with his face placid and his hand clasped, Stiles tries again. “You’re kidding. You’re messing with me.”

Derek shakes his head very minutely, side to side. “I’m dirty money. Everything in here, everything I bought for you.”

Stiles looks at him. It just doesn’t make any sense. There’s nothing about it that he can parse, but Derek is just so serious – and he wouldn’t make this shit up. He just wouldn’t. There would be no reason to, and it’d be insane, absolutely insane of him to do something like that just to do it. It’s… “so your family. Let me – okay. Let me get this straight. Your money is blood money, essentially,” he says, and Derek blinks. “And your family left you all this money when they died and the insurance on the house and all that. And now you’re just…wealthy off of that.”

“Pretty much.”

“But you don’t do any of that stuff.”

There’s a long, long silence, and Stiles sucks in a deep breath as it drags on even longer than that. He inhales through his nose and then exhales, and waits for Derek to say something. Anything. It can’t possibly be true. He can’t really be…no. It can’t be. Stiles has been with Derek for seven months, now. They know each other so fucking well, and if something like that were happening right underneath Stiles’ nose, he’d have figured it out by now. He’s smart. He’s observant. He notices things.

Slowly, Derek reaches underneath his blazer and pulls out a gun, tucked safely in its holster. He thumps it down on the coffee table for Stiles to see, and Stiles swallows and stares at it, eyes big in his head. Then, he follows it up with a small pile of money wrapped together with rubber bands.

All of the incriminating evidence is there, right there, for Stiles to see and look at and touch, if he wanted to. Derek hasn’t said explicitly yes I produce and sell illicit substances and participate in underground crime rings, but he doesn’t have to, because there it is. He has a gun. And it looks very, very well used.

Helpless, and feeling very small and unsure, Stiles says, “but you’re a financial advisor.”

Derek rubs his jaw. “I own a business where we advise people on their spending,” he looks Stiles right in the eyes, “which I launder my money through.”

Stiles gets up. He stands up from the couch and starts walking, off in a random direction. Derek must think he’s just about to blow out the door and be gone forever, which is honestly something that Stiles should be considering, because he stands up, too. But Stiles just walks off toward the set of wide windows on the other side of the penthouse, and then crosses back toward the couch, palming his forehead. He sucks in a deep breath and his eyes catch the incriminating paraphernalia on the coffee table, and he breathes out.

“Stiles,” Derek says, in a voice that one might use to talk to a wounded animal. “Talk to me.”

Stiles looks at him for a moment on his second crossing of the room, and then he turns and starts walking again, shaking his head. He tells himself that this can’t possibly be true. That he knows Derek. That he’s sure Derek wouldn’t be able to hide that from him, that he can’t be that much of a liar, that he can’t be that person, he just can’t be.

But unbidden, unwarranted, and most of all, unwanted, he thinks of all the signs he had. All the things that he saw happen and that Derek tried to lie about, and all the times that he just wrote it off as nothing because he was stupid, and in love with him. The bullet wound, for starters. And the cocaine he found in Derek’s bedroom. And the way Derek always talked around the question whenever anyone, even Stiles, asked him what it really was that he did, where the money came from, how he is who he is.

The things that his father said to him that night.

Stiles clenches his eyes shut and stops, freezing in the middle of the room. He puts his hands on his face and he breathes into them. He’s going to have a panic attack.

“Stiles,” Derek’s voice, and Stiles moves away from it on instinct, curling into himself. “I don’t know what you expected me to do –“

“When you said that you knew who I was the day you met me,” he starts, voice low and muffled by his hands. “You said everyone knows the name of the Sheriff’s son, but that’s not true. You knew it because you’re…” Stiles can’t finish that sentence. Frankly he doesn’t know what Derek is.

That’s the worst part of all of this. That Derek is…just a question mark, to him.

“So you are two different people,” he says, pulling his hands off his face and looking at Derek. He’s right there, right in front of him, and Stiles has this itching in his hand to reach out and slap him. All of this bullshit, all of this bullshit. “You’re who you are when you’re with me, and then you go out, and you – you –“

“I didn’t tell you because of your father.” Derek sounds like he’s begging. “I didn’t tell you because I - what I do – you’d never understand.”

“I wouldn’t understand.” He repeats it back, dumbfounded. “My father is the Sheriff. You – all those times you’d just be gone, all throughout the week, you weren’t at work, you were…” Stiles doesn’t even know. He can’t begin to guess. Derek has given him the most minimal amount of information to work with, and Stiles doesn’t know exactly and strictly what it is that Derek does – he just knows it’s…

Derek reaches out, maybe just to put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder or maybe to touch him somewhere else, but it doesn’t matter. Stiles jerks away as if Derek is on fire, hissing between his teeth. “Don’t touch me.”

Derek freezes in mid-air, and the words give him a physical reaction. He flinches, his entire body moving with it, and his lips part. It’s as though he can’t believe it. “I don’t know how else to be a person,” he says. “It’s how I was raised.”

“You’re a liar,” Stiles accuses, hugging his arms around himself because he has no one else to hold him, right now. “You’re a liar, you lied to me, and you – I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who you are.”

“I don’t see how the way I make my money changes anything about you and me.”

“It changes everything!” He shouts, loud in the space they’re in. “You’re not who you said you were!”

“What are you trying to say?” Derek demands, as though he has any rights whatsoever to be demanding things from Stiles right about now. “Are you – are you walking away? Are you done?”

The response should be an immediate yes. It should be fuck you it should be I wish I’d never met you, it should be anything under the umbrella of slamming the door behind him and never looking back. It should be.

But he hesitates, and he doesn’t know what to say. So he just says, “I’m confused,” because it’s true, and he palms his forehead and thinks about crying. And then he does cry, and he feels alone. He sniffles and rubs his eyes and thinks about all the things that Derek has said to him, all the things Derek has promised him, all the ways that Derek really does know him – and how it’s not fair, not at all, that Stiles barely knows Derek in return.

“Hey, no,” Derek reaches out again, and Stiles dodges out of the touch. “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry like that.”

“I thought you liked that?” Stiles spits, mean and nasty and cruel. Derek pulls his hand back and sets his jaw, his eyes brimming with an emotion Stiles doesn’t quite have a name for. “I’m in love with you, and you pull this shit on me.”

“I can work this out with you,” his tone is desperate. “We can work this out, we can talk about this, just – please calm down. Please calm down, please can we just talk? Please don’t go.”

There’s a pause, and Stiles blinks. A stranger is standing too close to him. He reaches up, and makes quick work of unclasping the choker around his neck. It comes undone and he piles it in his palm, stares at it for a second. There hasn’t been a single day in almost seven months he hasn’t put this on after his morning shower, not a single day he hasn’t looked in the mirror and seen it there against his skin.

He doesn’t even hand it to Derek. He just throws it on the ground and doesn’t stop to see what Derek’s reaction is.

Stiles cries harder and he has to go. No matter what Derek says, no matter what he thinks he could possibly say to make it right, it is what it is. Stiles is confused and lost and the person he’s been seeing and talking to every single day for seven months is a stranger, and he’s just so sad. He can’t be here right now, so he has to go.

“I don’t want to see you,” Stiles says, turning to walk away, towards the door. “I don’t want you talking to me, just leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that,” Derek follows behind Stiles with quick footsteps. “I can’t be without you, please don’t do this.”

But Stiles has to do this. Even as Derek begs and pleads with him to stay, please don’t, no I can explain, please don’t go please stay, don’t leave me, I need you, he opens up the door and he slams it behind him. He cries in the elevator, big hulking sobs that security can see through the cameras, and then he has to go into the parking lot and get into the car that Derek’s money, that Derek’s bullshit and his lies and his whatever, bought for him.

It feels wrong for him to be touching the steering wheel. Everything feels wrong.

Even if he tries to ignore Derek for however long he can, Derek will still be all over him. There’s nothing he can do about that, and it makes him so angry he could scream.

***

Stiles stares out his kitchen window as he sips at a steaming mug of coffee, glaring at that shiny blue car like he could melt the tires if he just stared at it for long enough and hard enough. He knows that he needs that fucking car and there’s nothing he can do about the fact that Derek is the one who bought it for him, but every time he has to drive it and every time he has to look at it, he gets this stabbing, visceral pain. Right in the most sensitive part of his chest.  
The money that bought that car…and really, it’s not even about that. It’s that Stiles apparently never quite rated the truth from Derek. All those times, all those opportunities he had to say what was really going on, and he chose to lie. Again, and again, and again.

It's physical, that pain. It isn’t fair.

“So you’re telling me,” Scott says from the table behind him, where he had camped himself out with a slice of banana bread and coffee the second Stiles said they had to have a serious conversation, “…your boyfriend is a mafia crime boss?”

“I don’t know the specifics,” he admits, voice low. “I didn’t exactly let him get that far into the explanation. But my understanding is uh – yeah. Pretty much.”

There’s a beat of silence. Then, “you’re telling me, your boyfriend is a drug lord. All that money he has – illegal.”

“Illegal,” Stiles repeats back to him, and the word feels inconsequential. It doesn’t carry the weight of everything that it should, but it’s the truth all the same. “Some of it is inheritance from illegal activities perpetrated by other people in his family, some of it is from insurance, some of it – maybe most…” he trails off. He doesn’t know the specifics, like he said. Honestly, he isn’t sure if he wants to.

“Holy fucking shit.” Scott thumps back into his seat, so Stiles turns around to find him rubbing his jaw and staring at the wall with a far away look in his eyes, like he’s really considering it. The only sound in the room for a moment is Scott rubbing away at his face, and Stiles sips his coffee and wants to melt into the floor. He had to tell his best friend, because he has no one else to tell – he sure as shit cannot talk to his father about it, and his other friends possibly couldn’t be trusted. But really, he doesn’t want to talk about it much. It’s raw. “And we thought the worst thing about him is that he might have wanted to piss on you.”

“All the times I thought that there had to be something wrong with him, that he was way too good to be true,” he shakes his head, staring down at his coffee. “I never thought of something like this. Yeah, the amount of money he has is…it’s absurd. But…this?”

“How sure are you that this is true?” Scott demands, turning in his seat to face Stiles all the way. “Like, did he provide evidence?”

“I don’t know why he’d lie.” He frowns into his mug, watching the steam rise and sniffling a bit. “He has a gun, probably more than one. He had a shit-ton of money just like, in his pocket.”

Scott blinks. “Holy shit.”

Derek must not be a very good person. In the wake of all this, Stiles isn’t sure what he thinks about him. It hasn’t been long, not at all – mere days, as a matter of fact. And so he can’t call the way he feels about Derek or the way he sees him phantoms or ghosts. He can’t say that it’s all memory; for him, the love is there and it pulses and he can’t get rid of it, can’t shake the idea that Derek is this soft and gentle person who loves him and is just rich because he works and yeah, there’s odd things about him, but he’s…just Derek.

All the same, Stiles tries to tell himself that a person who does what Derek does cannot be a good person. This is how he was raised to think. He is a cop’s son. You can’t be a good person and break the law just to get money off it, and drug money is dirty money. Maybe not the dirtiest, but there’s something sleazy about it.

And Derek had said he doesn’t know how else to be. That he was raised and marinated in that life.

“There’s still just something about it that doesn’t add up to me,” Scott is saying, so Stiles finally looks up from his coffee with a blink, coming out of his own head. “He does not act like a hardened criminal, dude. Not when he’s around you.”

“He must be very good at acting. He had me fooled for months.”

Scott’s face pinches together and he looks at Stiles like he half can’t believe what’s coming out of his friend’s mouth; like it’s in another language he can’t quite grasp. “He really loves you,” Scott insists, and Stiles makes a face and shakes his head. “How he was with you wasn’t an act.”

Stiles doesn’t even know what to make of that, so he just leans back against his counter and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in and out deeply through his nose.

“I just – I don’t know how the truth would’ve ever come up organically,” he starts stroking his face again, doing that staring at the wall thing. “How would he have ever brought that up?”

“Are you rationalizing this?”

“I’m just – I don’t think you’re that angry about the fact that he’s a mafia kingpin or whatever the hell,” he looks Stiles dead in the eyes, and it’s like he can see straight through to his deepest darkest thoughts. “You’re mad that he lied. But I get why he would lie.”

“Of course I’m angry that he’s a kingpin,” he scoffs, and then winces and shakes his head. “Or whatever he is. It’s – it’s fucked up and it’s weird and it’s gross, and…” he trails off, struggling to find the right words for what he even thinks about it anymore.

Scott stares at him some more, cocking his head to the side. “It doesn’t bother you as much as you think it should,” he assesses, and Stiles just hates that Scott knows him so fucking well. Knows him so well that even when Stiles can’t make heads or tails of what’s going on in his own head, Scott can.

“I’m confused!” Stiles shouts this, half throwing his mug into the sink where it clatters and spills its guts all over the stainless steel. “The guy who knows me more intimately than anyone else on planet earth is – and I don’t know how to – I just don’t know, all right? I don’t know! God, and the pictures…” he puts his hands over his face, and he hopes Scott doesn’t ask about that. Maybe he gets it, intrinsically without having to be told, because he doesn’t ask.

Stiles doesn’t think Derek would do anything with those pictures. He wouldn’t do anything with those pictures. Then again, he would’ve said Derek wouldn’t lie to him, and Derek wouldn’t play him like a fucking idiot for months, and Derek wouldn’t sell drugs and Derek wouldn’t own a gun and Derek never would’ve killed anybody.

Scott holds his hands up as if in surrender, eyes going big in his head. “Okay,” he says, voice a little placating while Stiles rubs at his face and feels small and stupid. “All right, I get it, dude. You want time away from him and this is all really weird and there’s a lot of, like, issues with it. But, man. I don’t know if there’s anyone alive who’s meant to be with you more than him.”

That scares Stiles. It scares the shit out of him. And the scariest part about it, above all else, is that Stiles knows that Scott is right. Derek is it, for him. He’s known that for some time, now.

“He lied to me.” Stiles says, and looks at his ceiling. “He made me trust him like that, and then he lied. I’m –“

“I know.” Scott’s voice is soft. The voice of his best friend, who knows that Stiles is this close to absolutely shattering. “Would it make you feel better if I said he’s a piece of shit? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, even when it isn’t. “He’s a piece of shit.”

“Men are dogs,” Scott says, raising his eyebrows and leaning back in his seat. “Scumbags. Pretend he just lied about not being a cheater, or something. Makes it easier to…make sense of it.”

Yeah, and maybe it would be easier, that way. It’s not that way. Stiles can’t pretend.

***

Stiles had been expecting a deluge from Derek – if not at first, then later on. He had been expecting calls and texts and things sent to his house and borderline harassment, if he’s being honest. Derek is nothing if not persistent, and even more nothing if not determined to get what he wants. And all things said and done and all the lies in the world, Derek never lied about how he feels towards Stiles. Stiles thinks he knows that.  
So then it’s a surprise when a week passes with certifiable radio silence. Inside his head whenever he thinks about Derek, he can almost hear the white noise. The unidentifiable but loud all the same noise of the two of them not speaking. It’s been months, and they haven’t gone a single day without texting since the day they met online. Stiles nearly doesn’t know what to do with himself once Derek goes quiet; he reaches for his phone out of habit and gets that stabbing-throbbing-burning sensation in his chest when there’s no notification.

Stiles had asked Derek to leave him alone. Stiles had asked Derek not to speak to him. He got what he wanted, and Derek is only doing what he was asked, and Stiles almost resents him for it.

But Stiles had been right because he typically is, and Derek does wind up coming out from the shadows eventually. What Stiles had said to Derek about how he thought he could just buy something to make Stiles forget all about what happened is true in the sense that Stiles literally believes that Derek thinks that way; he thinks that Stiles can be bought.

Which, okay, fair. Stiles has more or less proven that to be true on more than one occasion. But that doesn’t extend to things like this.

The point is, Stiles thought when Derek broke his cone of silence, he’d come back with fireworks and money and all the finest things illicit crime lord cash can buy. It would only stand to reason, after all, considering the man’s history and his likes and the way he acts most of the time.

So color Stiles surprised when a box arrives for him that’s barely bigger than his hand. It’s got his address and postage and nothing else on it, but Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that it’s from Derek the second he opens the package up and comes out the other side with a black box, tied with a red ribbon. He sets it on his kitchen table in all its glory, curling his upper lip, and sincerely thinks about throwing it in the trash without ever seeing what’s inside.

He runs his fingers along the ribbon and wonders what it would truly be like, to be rid of Derek. To wash him out like yesterday’s stains and pretend like nothing ever happened. To move forward and not look back.

With a heaving sigh, he has to resign himself to the knowledge that there is no going back. There are people that come into your life and change it to the point where it can’t ever go back to where it was. Stiles can’t ever pretend Derek isn’t the only one who ever really understood him. He can’t pretend he didn’t get on with Derek so well it was almost like they were born to meet one another.

He can’t just forget. There is no way to erase what’s been done, no matter what Derek did or didn’t tell the truth about.

Stiles undoes the ribbon with a flourish and gently picks the lid off of the box, clattering it down onto the table and peering inside. There isn’t a Rolex watch, or an eighteen carat diamond whatever the hell, or even just plain old money – there’s only two things in the box, and Stiles swallows as he picks them both out one by one and sets them down side by side.

There’s a paper mache’ blue fish, that nearly looks like Derek might have made it himself. Which would be funny, because it’s pretty well done and Derek had never mentioned being even halfway decent at anything artsy before. It’s on a string so Stiles could hang it from his ceiling, and it looks just like the one he had given Derek for their anniversary, down to the details. Satchmo is currently swimming in circles upstairs in Stiles’ room, because even though he represents all of this bullshit, he’s an innocent bystander.

The other item is a finely packed letter with Stiles’ name written in Derek’s unmistakable handwriting on front. When he picks it up, he can tell that it’s thick. At least three or four pages, neatly folded, and Stiles should burn it. Rational thought and logic knows that he should light this piece of shit on fire and never look at a single word of it. He’s the son of the Sheriff. He’s got a moral compass. He has ethics, he respects himself and those around him, he can’t – he can’t be with someone like Derek, on principle alone. And whatever Derek has to say for himself, it should mean nothing. Nothing.

Yet his fingers are reaching out and he’s sitting down to buckle down and read it. It’s like he has no choice. Maybe he doesn’t.

He can’t ignore the way that his fingers shake as he gently unfolds the letter. The words are packed tight in solid black ink on legal paper, long and long and long, and Stiles takes a second to flip through and count the pages and observe just how much Derek has to say for himself.

It’s a lot. It’s a lot.

He takes in a shaky breath and lays the letter down flat on the table top, running his hand along the paper to get the creases from the folds out. After only a second or two more spent stalling, he leans over the letter and pushes the little blue fish aside, and starts to read.

I know trying to sit and have a conversation with you would be a waste of both of our times because you would never listen to me. You would talk over me and argue with me and be angry and never hear a word I’d have to say and we’d be stuck at an impasse, forever. I also know you well enough to know that you wouldn’t be able to resist knowing what this letter said. You’d think about throwing it out. You’d play with the idea that you never want to see me again.

I just know you’re going to read this. You want to know what it is I could possibly have to say for myself, and to not know will drive you insane. I am writing this to you with only one goal in mind; and it’s not to explain myself or get you to see my side of anything. I cannot explain myself. My side is wrong.

My goal is to be honest. I’m not that much of a liar, in spite of what I know you must think. Nothing else, nothing, I ever told you was a lie. To lie about this particular part of my life was bred into me. I only know how to lie about this.

When we first started talking I had no fucking idea you were Stiles Stilinski. How could I have possibly known that? I thought you were just a twink on a kink website looking to get laid just like I was, and I thought we would hook up a couple of times and wash our hands of each other the way most of my sexual encounters have ended in the past eight years. I knew you were Stiles Stilinski the second you told me your name at the coffee shop the first day I saw you in person. I didn't know your name because we stalk the Sheriff or anything shockingly nefarious like that; I knew it because it’s my job to know it. I know everything about him, just like he likely knows as much about me as he can manage to find.

It might be responsible for me to say now that I should have walked away right at that exact moment. I should’ve been out the door. That would’ve been the decent thing to do, but I don’t care. I can’t make myself do that even in hindsight. I had opportunities to tell you the truth, yes, but then, I’d backed myself into a corner.

I’d gone and fallen in love with the Sheriff’s son. What was I supposed to do? You think I never lied awake at night long after you’d gone to sleep just to listen to you breathe staring at the ceiling, thinking about how I should tell you? You think I had fun lying to you again, and again, and again? I didn’t have a choice. I was terrified of how you would react when you found out, and I knew you’d walk out on me, and so I kept lying.

I never lied to be malicious. I did it selfishly, yes, but never with intent to hurt you. I want you as far away from this part of my life as possible. I guess I got caught up in pretending I was two different people – one person who has killed strangers over money and made a living off of others’ misfortunes, and another who’s just a rich guy who fucks you and makes you dinner.

The truth is, both are me. I’m just one person. I’m in love with you, and I happen to be very good at taking a car apart after hotwiring it to sell the thing for parts. I learned that when I was fourteen. I’m also very good at getting what I want out of people. My family and I make our money that way, and I guess we aren’t very good people. The money that pays for your nice things comes from me, not my other personality.

It’s just me. I take you out and I fuck you and I drive you around and buy you whatever you want, and then you go home and I get a money dropoff from selling firearms I had stolen. I launder my money. I watch Erica shoot some eighteen year old in the hand for not meeting quota. I clean myself up after a night spent in a literal crackhouse trying to bribe information from junkies, use the money I got from the stolen cars to buy you lingerie, you come over, I do it again. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know how to live if I’m not making money. And I don’t know how to make money any other way than this.

Like I said. My goal has always been to keep you as far away from all of that as possible. I don’t care if you want to know more.

I would understand if you don’t want to speak to me anymore. Who I am and what I do…I always knew it’d be next to impossible to find someone to love me. But you came, and I need you. I need you. I’m not sleeping at night. I don’t think of anyone else but you. You’re the only person I’ve ever truly loved, I know that now. You’re the only person who makes me weak.

Your father has got his eyes on me, and one wrong fucking move and I’ll be in prison for longer than you could be alive, and it’s the worst, most irresponsible decision for me to make. I can’t help myself; I’d rather be in prison than have you not speaking to me. I’m powerless. I’m begging for your forgiveness. Anything you ask of me, I will do.

I’d turn myself in if you asked me to. That’s fucking insane, but I mean it. Please just come talk to me. I need to hear your voice, even if it’s just telling me to go fuck myself.

I love you so much. I’m nothing if I can’t have you. All the money in the world, all the power, and it’s nothing if you’re not there with me. Please let me know what I can do to make you trust me again, if anything. I don’t do anything but wait for you to call me.

Burn after reading. – D.H.

Stiles doesn’t know how long he sits there at his kitchen table holding the letter in his fingers. He can feel the indents in the paper from Derek pressing into it with his pen, and he runs this hands all over it, again and again, imagining Derek sitting in his bedroom and writing this. All by himself, all alone, because as far as Stiles knows, he has no one else.

He has his “business partners”, and he has his maid, and a sister he barely speaks about, and a cavernous apartment no one ever comes calling to, and himself. Money-obsessed and paranoid and despicable in the eyes of many, he has no one. There’s this part of Stiles that feels so terribly sorry for him, but mostly, it just makes him want to cry to think of Derek hurting. And then it makes him angry.

There is enough evidence in this letter alone to send Derek to prison for a very, very long time. And Stiles has got the connections to make it happen – it’s a phone call away. It’s Stiles picking up his phone and calling his dad and showing him the letter, and that’s that. Derek gone. It would be so fucking easy. Maybe Stiles should be considering it.

He stands. He walks over to his stainless steel sink and plucks a lighter from the window sill with two fingers. With a long sigh that sounds so resigned and lost, he tears off only the last paragraph of the letter and sets it aside, lighting the rest on fire.

It burns, and Stiles holds it in his hand only for as long as he can without burning himself with it. He drops it into the sink and watches, the light from the flames licking across his face. He grips the edge of the sink and smells smoke and stares out his window.

“What’s wrong with me?” He muses to himself, eyes going to the part of the letter he had saved. He scans the words over and over again – I love you so much – and he wants to scream. The man is a liar. He’s a thief, an apparent murderer to some degree, a criminal, and a million other things Stiles doesn’t even have the words for. If he could think of them, they’d be bad.

Stiles is making a mistake, he knows he is. There’s just nothing he can do about it. The choice has been made.

***

The ride up to the penthouse feels a lot longer than it used to. He’s got Satchmo’s bowl cradled against his chest and he stares at the numbers as they tick and tick by, upper lip curling. Everything in him had been screaming at him to go and never come back, but that was just logic talking. Logic tells him Derek is scum.  
The way he feels in his chest is another story. Stiles has tried to fight it, but it’s been two weeks, and he can’t go on like this forever. It’s been so hard. He misses Derek so much it’s like missing a limb, and he’s so tired, and he’s so sad, and he just wants to…talk. He can talk. They can just talk. It’s not – it’s not right. But he’s doing it.

Stiles knocks on Derek’s door and stands there with Satchmo, turning his eyes upward to where he knows the security camera is. As far as he knows, Derek doesn’t watch these at all. Then again, there is turning out to be a lot about Derek that Stiles never knew about. Maybe he should stop guessing and just wait for the truth.

Derek opens the door, sees Stiles standing there looking all small and upset with Satchmo, and freezes. His lips part, and he seems to look Stiles over in his entirety as if checking for inaccuracies. Like he strongly believes that someone else has just dressed up as Stiles and put on his face and is standing there, because the real Stiles couldn’t possibly be. The seconds tick by, and Stiles holds onto the fish bowl a little tighter.

“I wanna talk,” he says, voice little. Derek nearly trips over his feet to open the door up all the way, gesturing for Stiles to come inside. Inside Stiles goes, and there are the exact people Stiles was pretty much hoping on never seeing again.

Erica, and Lydia, and Boyd. They’re all standing around Derek’s dining room table, heads turned to stare at him with no attempts made whatsoever to hide their apparent disdain for him. See, now, their hatred of him makes sense – their crime lord has been fucking the Sheriff’s son of all people for months on end. Homophobia, frankly, seems more palatable to Stiles. There are things on the table, and Stiles tries his hardest not to look at them. He just doesn’t want to know.

Of course, Erica speaks first. She says, “oh, fantastic,” with so much sarcasm it should physically burn Stiles’ skin. “Boytoy is back.”

Stiles eyeballs her, up and down, and decides he dislikes her. Quite a lot. The other two just glare at him like they wish he’d die or something, but she is clearly the worst of the lot. He’s just about to open his mouth to maybe say something particularly cutting, but Derek speaks over her.

He’s walking, heading off toward where Stiles knows his bedroom to be, and he barks “shut the fuck up.” Stiles blinks at his back, following behind him with his fish and raising his eyebrows. Stiles has never heard him talk like that to anyone. “Find some way to make yourselves useful, for once.”

They’re in the hallway and the eyes of the others are off of them, and Stiles sighs through his nose. Into the bedroom they go, and Derek makes it a point to shut the door up tight behind them like he suspects his pals out there might try to eavesdrop on them if they’re given half the chance.

It's almost weird to be in this bedroom again, knowing what he knows now. He looks around and it all looks just the same, while at the same time, seeming completely different. He puts Satchmo down gingerly on Derek’s dresser and then turns around to find Derek staring at him. He’s still looking at Stiles like he suspects him of being a mirage. “You look very tired,” Stiles tells him, because he doesn’t know where else to start. Derek looks at him, and he looks, and Stiles keeps talking. “I got your letter. I burned it.”

“Okay,” Derek says.

“I just uh – I just want to…” he holds his hands out, shakes his head. “There’s this part of me that still doesn’t believe that it could really be true. You know? I thought that I knew you so well, and then you…I just. I don’t know if I really think it’s real.”

Derek runs his thumb over his mouth, and he nods like he gets it. Without saying a word, he gestures with his head toward his closet, starts walking off in that direction. Stiles is meant to follow, so he does, stepping inside right as Derek flicks on the light. He walks down his row of dress shirts, all the way down to the end, and stops at a particular purple and green shirt sitting right next to one another. He pushes them aside and clumps up all the shirts around them, so Stiles can see that there’s a cabinet door there.

Derek opens it, revealing a collection of firearms so vast he can’t see it all with just his two eyes. He has to comb it over, from top to bottom, and he says nothing. They’re shiny. Derek takes care of them. He makes his money with them.

Derek bends down to where a safe Stiles had seen before is sitting on the ground – honestly, Stiles had thought it’s where…important things were kept. Maybe old family heirlooms or whatever the hell; Jesus, Stiles was so fucking stupid. He puts in a combination, pops the door open, and there’s more. Piles of bags filled with substances Stiles barely recognizes, a couple stacks of bills rubber banded together. Stiles nods his head. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do.

“It’s true,” Derek says, slamming the safe shut with a hard boom. He closes the cabinet as well, arranging the shirts back into their original position. Once all the evidence is locked away, he turns back to look Stiles in the face, so they’re facing one another in the fluorescent lights surrounded by all of Derek’s nice things and clothes, and Stiles stares at him.

“What is it that you actually do?” Stiles demands, because he deserves to know. Or, he thinks he does.

But Derek, apparently, still thinks otherwise. He says, “the less you know, the better.”

Stiles snorts. He gets so angry he thinks about taking one of those guns out of the cabinet and shooting it at the ceiling for catharsis. “You’re really still going to keep things from me? After all of this?”

“Yes,” Derek shoots back, like he doesn’t even need to think about it. “I would never give you explicit information about anything that I do. Think about it. Does that sound like a good idea to you? The more you know, the more danger you’re in. And not just from your father, who might ask you questions, or from any other law enforcement, who might ask you to incriminate me, but from people you don’t want to ever have the misfortune of meeting.”

Stiles looks away. He hadn’t thought about it like that before – it’s the same reason Derek had asked him to burn the letter. It’s not just information in some stupid guy he’s having sex with’s hands. It’s information in the hands of the son of the Sheriff. No matter how much Derek trusts Stiles, it’s not about Stiles at all.

It’s about being smart. It’s about not being a fucking idiot. By having sex with Stiles, he pretty much has already proven to be at least a little bit of one, but all the same. Stiles thinks he gets it. That doesn’t mean he’s particularly happy about it.

“What I told you already is all you need to know,” Derek goes on, and Stiles kicks his feet into the carpeting. “I only told you to be honest. I care about you so much, the thought of something happening to you makes me…” he trails off, setting his jaw. Stiles can use his imagination.

“I hate you,” Stiles snaps, and Derek nods his head like he expected that. “I hate you so much, and the thing that I hate the most about you is that I would fucking do anything for you. I love you,” he reaches out, giving Derek a hard shove on his shoulder. “I shouldn’t be around you.”

“You came here to talk to me.”

“I know I did,” he yells, and it sounds loud in the confined space. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you. I just can’t. And I know, I really know, not even just deep down but all over me, that I shouldn’t be near you anymore. I should not talk to you, I know that. I know that.” He bites his lip, maybe to keep from crying. “But I can’t help it.”

Derek steps forward, close into Stiles’ personal space bubble. Unlike last time, Stiles doesn’t shrink away, and doesn’t tell him to get the hell away from him. “You know how I feel, too,” Derek murmurs, and Stiles looks away. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“You did. And my dad…”

“I hate to put a burden on you more than anything,” he reaches out, touches Stiles on his face, feather light – just the backs of his fingers brushing against his cheek. “But if you want to be around me, you’ll have to lie for me. To your father.”

“I know that,” he says, looks at his feet. “I’ve thought about it.”

“I’d never ask you to do that.” He puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, squeezing nice and tight. “I’m just telling you it’s your choice. You can, or you can not. Put me away if you want,” he looks Stiles dead in the eyes and Stiles is almost torn apart by the electricity that goes through him as they stare at one another. “Anything you want to do from here, I’m powerless to stop you. Walk out, or stay, or hit me, or anything.”

“Why don’t you give me one reason I shouldn’t call my father right now and have him search that cabinet and that safe and question those people you have in your living room?” He challenges, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes. “One reason.”

Derek licks his lips, looks Stiles’ face over again and again. He says, “because you don’t want to.”

“Because I don’t want to,” Stiles repeats back to him, the words pulled out of him as if by a string. Because he just doesn’t fucking want to. “I’m doing the wrong thing.”

“I do the wrong thing every day,” Derek, honest-to-God, grins. All his teeth, shiny and white and perfect even in the middle where they’re a little funny looking. “It’s a lot more fun that way. I have all the money in the world and people who do as I say and eight cars and anything I could ever want,” closer, closer he comes, so close Stiles can feel his breath as he speaks. “…because I’m a very, very bad guy. I just want you to remember you like it when I do things that are wrong to you.”

Stiles shivers. Yes, yes he does like it. He likes it very much.

“Somewhere deep down, I bet you like who I am. What I do. It turns you on. Just a little.”

He won’t admit to that. He doesn’t know that it’s true, not now, not when all the information is so shady and up in the air and fresh. But he doesn’t know that it’s not true, either, and that scares him at the same time that it gives him a thrill.

Stiles grew up on a mentality that being a good person and doing the right thing and earning money the honorable way – that was how he was going to live. He knows the rules of the law like the back of his hand, and maybe he’s stolen before and lied and done less than admirable things, but he would never do what Derek does. He could never own an illegal firearm. He could never sell drugs. He’s bought weed before, but shit, who hasn’t?

That’s half of what it is. Half of why Stiles isn’t running for the hills as they speak. There’s something so bad-wrong about Derek, now. It’s not just the sex, anymore – but it certainly adds onto it. It’s sexy, in a way, to think that Derek isn’t a good guy. He does bad things. His father would never approve. It’s all wrong, wrong, wrong, and Stiles wants it.

“Seeing you cry the way you did that night – you remember when I said, there are good tears and bad tears,” he bites the shell of Stlies’ ear, and Stiles just lets him, because he’s not thinking clearly – he can’t be. “I never want to see you cry like that again. Because of something I did or said, baby, I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I want to be with you, but I don’t want to lie. You know who I am.”

“Yeah.”

“Please stay with me.” He begs this, putting his hands on Stiles’ hips. “Please come to New York with me. Please. Like we planned. Your birthday is in two weeks, let me – let me show you how good being with me can be, if you just learn to forget some things.”

Can Stiles do that? Can he compartmentalize like that? Can he lie to his dad, and can he stand it when Derek has to leave and not be able to say where he’s going, and can he deal with those people in the living room, and can he live with knowing that Derek has done things that would make Stiles’ skin crawl if he knew the full story?

Derek puts his hands on him, on his bare skin, and Stiles knows that he has to. He has to live with it all, because Derek is his soulmate. He just is. It’s the universe’s cruel way of doling out favors, to make the one man who Stiles could see himself spending the rest of his life with being someone who his father would shoot and kill on sight if given even half a reason to. The son of the Sheriff and a man with nineteen illegal firearms and piles of money and a penthouse and stupid lackeys who make fun of him and hate him – it’s almost poetic, if he thinks about it.

“I’m not ready,” Stiles says, pulling away from Derek’s hands even as it kills him. “I want to – I want to, but I need some, uh – some time.”

“Time.” Derek repeats. He looks like he doesn’t like the sound of that, not one bit, but like he won’t argue it because it’s what Stiles wants and needs.

“I’ll come to New York,” he promises – because that really is in only two weeks, now, and Stiles nearly can’t believe it. “But for now, in the meantime…can we take it sorta…slow? I want to learn how to be with you, knowing what I do.”

Derek is quick to agree. He nods fervently and a smile pulls on the edges of his mouth. “Baby,” he says, and it sends sparks down Stiles’ spine to hear that word from his lips again after so much time apart. “Thank you. I love you so much. All the time in the world, you can have it.”

Slowly, Stiles reaches into his pocket and produces the red velvet choker, holding it out in the palm of his hand. Derek’s eyes zero in on it, and then he’s really smiling. His whole face breaks out with it, eyes crinkling at the corners, like he’s never been so pleased in his life. And again, just like before, Stiles gets that heavy feeling of pure bliss at seeing Derek be pleased with him. “I need you to put this back on for me.”

“Anything you want,” Derek agrees in a low voice, picking the thing up out of Stiles’ palm.

Stiles turns and stares at Derek’s clothes as Derek fiddles with the thing to try and get it back on, and he smiles. Just a little bit. It is wrong, so wrong, so fucking weird and wrong and stupid, what he’s doing.

But, God. He just can’t help himself. He’s in love, and the man is filthy rich, and he is who he is. Stiles is gone on this; absolutely and completely obsessed with this, just the same way Derek is obsessed with his money.

Power and money and sex. Stiles could get used to it.

***

Stiles walks into the Sheriff’s station in the middle of the afternoon and feels like he should be arrested on sight. He and Derek have just been texting, mostly, going over the faults in their relationship and clearing the air. They’ve talked on the phone a bit too, one night until three in the morning and Stiles fell asleep to the sound of Derek’s voice, but they’re going slow. Nice and easy and slow. Learning to be together with the truth, Stiles accepting that Derek can’t tell him everything, and on and on.  
But, still. He feels like a wanted criminal.

He walks down the rows of desks and gives Parrish a wave when they lock eyes, which Parrish returns a bit too hastily. That man, Stiles has always thought, is into him. It’s obvious, so fucking obvious, but Stiles never made a move – mostly just because the guy is a nice guy. He also probably likes missionary a lot. Stiles could do without him.

Popping open the door to the Sheriff’s office without knocking, he immediately holds up the bag of takeout food as a peace offering. His dad looks at him, takes his glasses off as if making sure he’s really seeing what he’s seeing, and frowns.

Stiles says, “supreme burrito,” and the Sheriff glares a bit more. Then, he drops his pen on his desk and gestures with two fingers for him to come in, like he has no choice. In Stiles goes, immediately putting the burrito down in front of his father so he has something to focus on. “It’s from your favorite place, too.”

“Hm,” the Sheriff grunts, but he picks the box open and observes his treasure with a hungry look in his eyes.

Stiles sits down and huffs, running his hand over his forehead. They haven’t spoken since that night, of course not, but he can’t just not talk to his dad. It doesn’t work that way – they’re all each other has, at the end of the day, and neither of them can afford to stay angry. “Dad, you really upset me the other night. I know you think you had your reasons to be angry,” the Sheriff stabs into his burrito particularly hard, to the point where Stiles is sure he went clean through the Styrofoam and down onto his desk, “but you’re wrong about Derek. I know, his family did things that were less than savory. But he talked to me about it.”

He takes in a deep breath. Bending the truth, he reminds himself. It’s not exactly lying. It’s bending. It’s all gymnastics, dude.

“He’s not who his family was, okay? And he’s been through a lot, and he’s so good to me, you can’t imagine. He’s wealthy. He takes care of me,” he leans in and tries to catch his father’s eyes; but like usual, when his dad feels bad for something, he’s refusing eye contact. “And I love him. I love him so much. It would kill me to know that you dislike him just because of his past. I want you to try and get on with him, that’s all I want.”

He looks like he’s about to either start yelling or flip his burrito off his desk in a fit of rage – but he does neither. He eats for a moment in silence, like he’s mulling all the information over, and then he wipes at his face with a napkin. He half throws his plastic fork into the food and shakes his head. “The way he talked to me –“

“I know,” Stiles interrupts. “It was wrong and stupid and I talked to him about it. We want to take you out to dinner,” he goes on, and that seems to catch his attention. “Clear the air. Derek is willing to do this because he loves me. Don’t be the asshole who doesn’t agree, okay?”

The Sheriff shakes his head some more, looking distraught and upset and annoyed. He says, “I don’t care for him. I’m just telling you I may never like him.”

“Okay,” Stiles agrees. After all, there are dozens of reasons he shouldn’t. He just doesn’t know what they are.

“The conversations I’ve had with him in the past have been –“ a long pause, like he’s choosing his words very, very carefully if only for Stiles’ sake. “Colorful.”

Stiles puts his hand over his mouth. “You’ve talked to him in the past?’

“Of course I have,” he says it like it’s so obvious, stabbing around in his food and chewing all angry with a set to his eyes that suggests he’s imagining cleaning his gun in front of Derek the next time he gets the chance. “I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I’ve questioned him at least six times.”

“And have you ever gotten anything?” Stiles’ eye twitches. He can only hope his dad doesn’t notice.

A long pause. “No,” he admits, like he doesn’t want to say it. “He seems to be very good at cleaning up.”

“Or he doesn’t do anything wrong,” Stiles argues, and the Sheriff just looks at him. They stare at each other for seconds on end, and Stiles dares himself to not break the eye contact. He won’t fold first. If he looks away, it’ll seem like he’s lying, and he is, he really is, but he can’t let his dad know that. “He’s a good person, dad, please.”

A long, grievous sigh. His dad looks up at the ceiling and presses his hands to his mouth, shaking his head again and again. “I need to reiterate,” he begins, and Stiles just palms his forehead and wishes this conversation would just end, “that until the day I die, I’m not going to trust that man. Even less so now that he’s involved with my son.”

Stiles blinks at him. He expected nothing less.

“Maybe he really gave up all those things that gave him all that money to begin with, but the way he acts and how he carries himself, like money is everything…ha. Flashy cars and million dollar penthouse apartments like he’s giving me the middle finger for not being able to figure him out. Men like that don’t change,” and no, no they certainly do not. Derek likes money and control and power, and that’s that. He’ll never change. “But I can be…civil,” he says the word like it disgusts him. “If for your sake alone.”

“Civil is all I ask for,” Stiles agrees quickly, holding his hands out. “Civil will do.”

“But you tell him –“ he points his finger, vindictive and angry, “that if I ever, ever find out –“

“Dad,” Stiles interrupts, stern. “He has a bad family name, we get it. You’ll never find out anything about him. I swear it.”

“Hm,” he grunts again, and viciously bites into his food. “It better be a nice fucking dinner.”

Oh, it will be. Stiles will see to it that it is.

***

“You know,” Scott thumps a dinner plate in front of Stiles, loaded with spaghetti and meatballs and steaming its aroma into Stiles’ face, “you haven’t said anything about it, but you’re wearing that thing again.”  
Scott sits across from him and gestures to his own neck, so Stiles mimics the action and touches his fingers and feels red velvet instead of skin for his trouble.

“I haven’t seen Derek around and you’ve been home most of the time,” he goes on, stabbing at a meatball with an all-knowing grin on his face. “But are you two uh…talking again?”

It’s really, and truly, the most absurd and bizarre thing that Scott would be happy about this. If any sane person on planet earth heard that their best friend was getting back together with their drug peddling boyfriend, they’d immediately be quarantining the other or something like that. It’s a horrible idea. It’s fucking terrible.

Yet there Scott is, grinning like a bobcat, and Stiles has to palm his forehead. “We are talking,” he concedes, to which Scott’s smiler only gets wider. “But we’re uh – we’re taking it slow.”

“Slow,” Scott draws the word out all long for its single syllable.

Stiles pokes around in his food and shrugs, feeling stupid and happy at the same time. “I think he might be the love of my life. I can’t just walk away.”

“I figured as much,” Scott says as he rolls himself a big forkful of spaghetti.

“You’re not at all concerned about the small print?”

“I am. I’m concerned,” he eats, chewing and talking at the same time, “but then I’ve never seen you as happy as you are when you’re with him. Give and take, I guess.”

Give and take. Is that all it is? The give being Stiles being happy with a guy who understands him and listens to him and makes him feel good and treats him how Stiles always wanted to be treated, and the take being Derek being who he is and doing what he does. It seems so simplistic when it’s put that way, but Stiles likes it. It almost makes it seem normal.

“He might be a bad guy, but at this point, I have it on good authority he wouldn’t, like, hurt you.”

He wouldn’t. He would never. Even with all of this, Stiles is certain of that one single thing.

“Anyway,” Scott waves his hand, fork still clenched in his fingers so he almost loses a meatball from the force of it, “if you guys aren’t hanging out tonight –“

“We are not.”

“…then you should come out with me and…the girl from the mall.”

Stiles stops what he’s doing. He drops his fork with a clink onto his plate and looks at Scott real fucking steadily. “You finally talked to that girl.”

“I did,” he looks very proud of himself, spearing another meatball and smirking. “I walked right up and I said, come out for a drink with me. And you know what she said?”

“Get away from me you disgusting creep.”

“She said, yeah, okay.”

“Woooowwwwww,” Stiles throws his head back – he genuinely cannot believe this day has come. Scott has been staring at that fucking girl and going to buy ice cream from her every god damn week for months, now. Like, almost an entire fucking year. And now, out of nowhere, he finally has the balls to ask her out. “You really want me to come with you on your date?”

“I want it to be casual. Like a get to you know you sort of thing just in case she turns out to be, you know,” he waves his hand a bit, “weird. The only conversations we’ve had were about sprinkles to ice cream ratios. For all I know, she likes weird kink shit like you.”

Stiles makes a face. He can tell just from looking at that girl that she barely even knows what the word kink means, let alone actively participates in any of it.

“And plus, I need you there so I don’t put my foot in my mouth. Come out, man. It’s going to be chill.”

Seeing as how it’s been a long while since he and Scott have really gone out together, it’s all he can do to say yes. Derek has taken up way too much of his time lately, and Scott is way too good of a friend, so he agrees. They finish up dinner and take turns in the shower dressing themselves up and spraying axe all over themselves, and out they go. They walk with their hands in their pockets in the cool autumn air downtown to the bars, and then plant themselves in a booth at their favorite spot while Scott anxiously fixes his hair again and again and goes over talking points with Stiles.

Ice cream girl arrives, looking very date appropriate. You can always tell when someone is interested and when they’re not just based on what they’re wearing – and ice cream girl, in a pink and white dress with her hair shiny and sleek like she took a straightening iron to it, looks interested. Very. And then Stiles has to remember - who could not be interested in Scott? He’s so baby faced and nice and he holds the door. Girls should be so lucky.

She introduces herself as Kira and orders a vodka soda, and Stiles tries to keep his commentary to a minimum. It actually isn’t that hard to be the third wheel; the two of them chit chat easily like they’ve known each other for a while, and Stiles sits and drinks and plays around on his phone.

Daddy, 9:56 PM : What are you doing?   
Me, 9:59 PM : I am third wheeling on Scott’s preliminary date with the girl from the mall.  
Daddy, 10:01 PM : No shit? He talked to that girl?   
Me, 10:03 PM : No shit!! He IS talking to her as we speak! It is going well. I know you’re very interested.  
Daddy, 10:04 PM : I feel I’m a part of the Scott and ice cream girl saga just like you two are. I’ve only heard about her every other week. I assume she has a real name.   
Me, 10:05 PM : Yeah, it’s Ice-Cream Girl. She goes by Ice for short   
Me, 10:05 PM : What are YOU doing?   
Daddy, 10:07 PM : Talking with Erica.   
Me, 10:08 PM : Oh. She hates me.   
Daddy, 10:09 PM : She doesn’t hate you.   
Daddy, 10:09 PM : Even if she did, she’s a bitch, who cares.   
Me, 10:10 PM : She called me a boytoy ):   
Daddy, 10:11 PM : Is that not accurate…?   
Me, 10:12 PM : Suddenly I’m blocking your number

Stiles comes back into the conversation around the time that Kira is finishing off her second drink and announcing she should really get home because she’s got the opening shift in the morning. Stiles is almost disappointed and can tell that Scott is too, but then she fishes out a sparkly pen and a note pad with cartoon frogs on it and scribbles her number with a flourish. She says, “I would really like it if you called me,” all sincere and shy, and Stiles looks away if only to hide his smirk.

Scott excitedly barks about taking her out to dinner on Friday, which she agrees to instantly as she passes the little note paper over. She stands and leaves with a little wave, leaving Scott and Stiles alone in their booth with their drinks and peanuts, and Scott watches her until she’s all the way out the door. Once she’s gone, he’s honest to fucking god shoving that frog-note into his face and sniffing it like some kind of an animal.

He says, “it smells like perfume, dude. I love girls.”

“I’m a fan myself,” Stiles says, sipping and shrugging. “Not the having sex with them bit, but girls have sparkly pens and frog paper. They know how to have fun. Let’s keep drinking, in the spirit of the frogs.”

“Yeah!” Scott agrees, already craning his neck to get a lock down on their cocktail waitress. He spots her hovering by the ice machine, scooping away, and he waves a bit frantically in her direction before calling her by her name (because he’s one of those people who reads name tags and treats wait staff like friends) and making the international gesture for another round. “Let’s get drunk.”

“Scott and Stiles, out on the town.”

“Double S,” Scott corrects, and Stiles nearly slams his face down into the table.

“I told you I hate that,” he says around a laugh. “It sounds like the world’s most hefty set of breasts.”

They drink. They order shots from their waitress and down them as soon as she hands them off, and Scott orders two more and they do those rapid-fire as well. It’s been a long time since Stiles has gone out drinking with Scott, so he nearly forgot just how insane it gets – not to mention how quickly it gets out of hand. They drink, and drink, and bar hop and deflect unwanted attention from girls politely and quickly, wind up smoking cigarettes in the back of the shittiest bar in town at sometime past midnight.

Stiles takes a long drag, fumbles his drink a bit but catches it before it smashes on the ground, and starts talking. “Look,” he begins, while Scott leans up against the wall and spills a bit on his arm, “I know I’m like, technically back with Derek. I mean, generally I am. I’ve got the thing on.” He gestures to his choker, and Scott looks at it. Stiles has often times wondered if Scott has given any actual thought to what it represents; and then he’s sure that Scott couldn’t guess even if he tried and actively shies away from the thought. He’s supportive and Stiles and his kinks, but that doesn’t mean he particularly likes to spend time ruminating on any of it. “But I’m – dude. I’m still lowkey pissed.”

“I would be lowkey pissed,” Scott agrees.

“Because he – you know. He lied. He lied a lot. And he’s like…” he looks around himself, at the other people milling around smoking and talking, and gives a gesture that’s meant to encapsulate what it is that Derek does. He makes a gun sign, fires it, and Scott nods like he gets it entirely. “…but I’m just back with him a little bit, and I’m like…wow. I should’ve spent a lot more time being mad. You know? It’s just so hard when I like him so much and the sex is so good.”

“I can’t believe you’re in love with a…” he also looks around at the fellow bar patrons, suspicious of their listening ears. He lowers his voice and leans in close to Stiles, nearly pressing his mouth against Stiles’ ear. “…fry cook.”

Fry cook in this capacity Stiles takes to mean criminal at large. But it just makes Stiles picture Derek as Spongebob Squarepants.

“There’s lots of money in the fry cook business. Dude, he buys me anything I want. I could ask him for a hot tub and he’d be like, okay, here it is.”

“We need a hot tub,” Scott says, excited. “Ask for a hot tub.”

“Hot tub is on the list.”

“Get one of those ones that has the lights, like on Jersey Shore.”

“But, man,” Stiles puffs on his cigarette and shakes his head, looking up at the stars. “I’m mad. Just a little bit.”

“You know what you need to do?” Scott puts his drink down on the picnic table and it falls over. The ice and drink and straw all go spilling out over the edge of the table and Stiles watches it happen, but Scott acts like he doesn’t even know which planet he’s on, let alone that he’s just spilled his drink. “You need to get back at him.”

“Get back at him,” Stiles repeats, dumbfounded.

“Yeah. Like, revenge. You know. Just do something to him that he won’t like, as a gag, you know? A prank.”

This, for some reason, sounds like a really good idea to Stiles right about now. Like, the best idea ever. Even though lucidly he would think that the reason he’s not going to “get back” at Derek for most anything he does is because that’s just not how their relationship works, at the moment, he likes the sound of it. He stands there and thinks, puffing on his cigarette, and then a lightbulb hits. He imagines a literal lightbulb, a red one because this is a bad fucking idea, going off over his head. He says, “dude. I know exactly what to do.”

***

Stiles wakes up in the morning and feels terrible, which isn’t entirely a surprise. He sits up and groans, smacking his lips and frowning. Immediately he’s reaching onto his bedside table to get the water drunk-him had set out sometime around three in the morning. It’s half spilled all over the place, but it does the trick. He drinks until the glass is empty, glares at his bedroom and the sun, and for ten blessed seconds, has no regrets.  
Then, he remembers. Oh my God, does he ever remember.

He staggers out of his bed and nearly brains himself on his own shoe, scattering on all limbs like a deer learning how to walk before righting himself and getting onto his feet. He bumbles out of his room, throwing the door open and beelining it down the hallway. He goes down the stairs, trips a couple of times, and then comes out into the living room, and there it is.

He palms his forehead and his jaw hangs open. This cannot be real. “Oh, no,” he says, shaking his head again and again. “Oh, no. Oh, no no no no –“

There, sitting all propped up in the center of his house, is a BMX motorbike. He stares at it for what feels like hours, just cradling his own face and trying to think his way out of this one. But there’s literally no way out of it. He did this. He drunkenly went out and bought a BMX motorbike for the sole purpose of pissing Derek off on a whim, and Scott egged him on. He remembers bursting into Wal Mart at one in the morning and picking the thing out, observing the price tag and cackling because what did it matter? It was Derek’s money. He spent Derek’s money on this – and like Stiles has said time and time again, there’s nothing Derek seems to take more seriously than his fucking money, and Stiles has done this.

Worst of all, he did it just to be a little bitch. Derek knows that. This is...bad.

“He’s gonna kill me,” he moans, because he really, really is.


	8. Tax evasion.

Stiles doesn’t even take the time to try and get rid of it. He woke up at one in the afternoon and it’s only two o’clock now, and he’s spent that entire hour just sitting on his couch with his chin in his palm, waiting for his fate to come. There’s no way that Derek hasn’t already seen the charge. The man checks on his money obsessively, and he knows. Oh, he knows. He fucking knows.

Scott, for one, doesn’t seem that upset about it. To him, he’s just got a new toy. He takes it out back and tells Stiles not to worry about it, what’s the worst that Derek could do?

The thing is, Stiles has no fucking idea what the worst Derek could do is. He can’t even fucking guess, because Stiles has never been in trouble before. Not really, at least – he’s been lectured before, yeah, but actual honest-to-god in trouble with Derek? Not yet. He has no idea what to expect. If he’s being honest, he’s a little terrified.

The terror only grows when he peeks out his window right on time to see the Audi coming to a full stop in his drive way. He literally squeaks, shooting up off the couch and actually thinking of making a run for it out the back door. He has no way to explain his way out of this, and Derek is going to be angry with him, and this whole entire thing is just a fucking mess. He doesn’t want Derek to be mad at him. It’s the worst possible thing he could imagine, making him angry and disappointed when he’s supposed to be, you know – a good boy. It’s part of the deal, in the unwritten vocalized contract. Derek buys Stiles what he wants and treats him like a million dollar precious toy he has, and Stiles is meant to act right.

This is bad.

The car door slams, and Stiles stands and twiddles his fingers. Footsteps, his doorbell ringing, and Stiles squeaks again. This is not just bad – this is horrible. He runs his hands through his hair and tries to square his shoulders, but it’s no use. No use at all. By the time he’s opening up the door and Derek is there, Stiles is very, very small, and Derek seems huge in a bubbling circle of anger.

He looks at Stiles, steady and blank, and takes a step inside before Stiles even says anything. Stiles backs away from him and lets him in, moving out into the living room and swallowing a heavy lump in his throat. Derek looks around. He peeks into the kitchen, down the hall, into the living room, and then settles his eyes on Stiles. He blinks. “I saw something very interesting this morning.” His tone has no inflection.

“Uh,” Stiles says. He twiddles his fingers so hard he thinks he’s going to pull one or all of them off.

“Anything you wanna tell me?”

“No,” he blurts before he can help himself. Lying about it will only make it worse, he knows, but it’s hardwired into him. He has to try and think his way out of this. Right on cue, right as Derek is about to question him further and Stiles is about to lie even more, the distinct sound of an engine revving comes from the backyard.

Derek’s eyes go towards the window, and Stiles could drop dead. He really and honestly could. Or, he could go out back and shoot Scott in the fucking arm for being such a god damn idiot.

“I don’t know what that is,” he says, quick, and as soon as Derek looks at him like he already knows what happened, like he already saw the charge, like he knows what that noise was, Stiles is cracking. “I was drunk!”

Derek just looks at him. There’s this suspended second of time where Stiles is sure he’s going to rip Stiles’ head clean off his fucking body, throw it to the crows, and then stomp on it.

And, he smiles. Derek literally and completely, smiles. Which almost makes Stiles’ brain fucking short circuit. He shouldn’t be standing there smiling. He should be angry. He should be very, very fucking angry because Stiles did the exact fucking thing that Derek warned him specifically not to god damn do – he should be so pissed off that the ground shakes when he walks, or something.

But there he is, smiling. The most disconcerting bit about it is that Stiles knows why he’s smiling. Oh, boy, does he fucking ever.

Without saying a single word, he takes Stiles by his upper arm and starts tugging him off toward the back door. Stiles goes, quietly at that, because what’s he really supposed to say?

He is in so much trouble he might as well be swimming with sharks with a cut on his leg. Which is exactly why Derek is smiling in the first place – he finally, finally gets to actually punish Stiles for something he’s done in a BDSM capacity. Stiles has really gone and fucking done this to himself.

Out they go, onto the back patio, and there Scott is, straddling the motorbike like he’s just about to take the thing for a spin. He turns and sees Derek and Stiles standing there, and he pauses for a moment, eyeballing them both. Stiles wonders what they must look like, he and Derek, but whatever it is, it has Scott stopping. He looks at them, looks and looks, and then turns the engine off.

“You don’t know anything about it, huh?” Derek asks him, and Stiles looks at his feet.

“I was drunk,” he tries to explain, all while Scott is climbing off the thing and awkwardly shuffling away from it. “I was – I was feeling petty.”

“Petty.” There is amusement in his tone. He really thinks this all so fucking funny – and, okay, maybe it is. Maybe it sort of, kind of, is. “That thing is going back. Right now.”

“What?” Scott actually has the gall and the balls to fucking complain. He frowns and gestures to it, all while Stiles tries to shoot daggers out of his eyes that read shut your fucking ugly mouth. “How come I have to have it taken away, too?”

Derek rounds on him, eyes hard and his voice quick and clipped. “You’re the dumbass who likely encouraged him to do this in the first place.”

Scott stands there in the wake of this chastisement, and he looks flabbergasted. He’s likely shocked out of his mind that Derek is honest to God talking to him like that, like some little kid who's in trouble, and on top of that, even more shocked that it’s working. He stands there, mouth hanging open as he looks between the bike and Stiles and Derek, again and again, and then he nervously runs his hand over the back of his neck.

“I,” he begins, already tip-toeing his way toward the house. “…am going to make myself scarce.”

And then he speedwalks to the back door, slamming it behind himself and likely going upstairs to hide in his room. God only knows what he thinks is about to happen – Christ, Stiles doesn’t even fucking know what’s about to happen to him.

They stand there for a moment, and Derek gestures to the bike. He raises his eyebrows, waves his hand at it, and says, “really?”

Because it’s his only defense, Stiles just repeats for what seems like the ten thousandth time, “I was drunk.”

Derek doesn’t seem impressed. He says, “let’s go. Inside.” He starts hauling Stiles back into the house, while Stiles half drags his feet. He doesn’t want to go inside. He wants to stay outside where it feels somehow less like he’s about to get his ass reamed out.

While Derek opens up the back door and gently pushes Stiles through back into the kitchen, Stiles decides to pipe up in a last ditch effort to soften the blow. “Daddy, I’m sorry,” he tries, as genuine as he can. Derek says nothing, like he doesn’t even care. Likely, he doesn’t.

They go up into Stiles’ bedroom, and Derek closes the door behind them. “Sit,” Derek says, and Stiles immediately plants himself onto the edge of his bed and folds his hands together, biting his lip and hunching in on himself.

He has no idea where this is about to go. None whatsoever. The nerves he feels are nearly talking to him inside his skull, all at once, yelling at him about fight or flight instinct. But the loudest part of him, the most dominant and central point of focus, is this weird tinge of excitement. There’s this part of him, all twisted and dark, that…wants Derek to punish him.

Hell. Maybe that was even why he bought the thing in the first place. He knew in the back of his mind he was going to get in trouble. He did it anyway. Pushing Derek to the edge just to find out what happens when he finally snaps.

“Give me that credit card,” he barks, and Stiles scrambles to follow the order. He reaches down onto the floor below and grabs at the jeans he was wearing last night, fishing his wallet out. His fingers fumble as he moves to pull out Derek’s American Express, and as soon as he has it in his hand, Derek snatches it quick.

He pockets it, and that’s likely the last Stiles will see of it for many moons to come. Then, Derek holds out his palm and says, “give me your keys.”

That is an order Stiles does not immediately follow. He turns, facing Derek all the way, looking at his face as if to gauge whether or not he’s joking. “You’re kidding me,” he tries, voice low and careful.

Derek points a single finger up to his face – and his smile has been replaced with a blank, empty, frown, likely just to make his point. “Give me the keys. I paid for that car. With the same money you apparently think is yours to be a fucking brat with. Give me the keys, I’m taking it away.”

“Taking it –“ he starts, about to argue with everything he has in him, but Derek just silences him with a single look. This isn’t a game. And Stiles really, really doesn’t have a choice. Slow, and miserable, Stiles bends back down and grabs his keys out of his pocket, pulling himself back up and biting his tongue to keep himself from saying anything else as he hands them off to Derek.

Those go into Derek’s pocket too, and Stiles watches with big, sad eyes.

“You know I let you get away with almost everything,” Derek says, and Stiles has to agree on that one. Stiles gets away with murder, as far as some other people might be concerned. “But you know and you have always known that the one area where I draw the line is my money. I don’t appreciate it when the spoiled brat who gets everything he wants thinks he can just take my money and buy something just to get a rise out of me.”

Stiles bites his lip and looks at his hands.

“You know I’m going to punish you.”

With a quick, fleeting glance up to Derek’s face, Stiles nods his head and feels small. The smallest he’s ever felt in Derek’s presence, honestly. And as a result, a sick twisted result, his dick reacts in his pants. Stiles just really, really likes it when Derek is in control of him; he’s fucked up, what can he say?

“But let me give you a little bit of wiggle room,” he rubs at his chin and neck, where some stubble is sprouting in the daddyest, sexiest way possible, and Stiles’ mouth honestly salivates. “Since you don’t want me to hurt you, and spanking is only for play…” he trails off, and Stiles just keeps his eyes trained on him, almost like he has no place else in the world to look. “…why don’t you tell me what you think I should do to you?”

It takes a second for the words to really sink in. They hover there in the air between the two of them, Derek’s expectant face looking at Stiles and Stiles looking back with big eyes. He clears his throat, but it still comes out raspy when he speaks. “I…”

“Pick something,” Derek says, not too forcefully. “You clearly had some intrinsic need or want to be punished for whatever reason, and now we’re here, so tell me what you want. What do you think you deserve?”

So many things flit through his mind in rapid succession. The issue is that the word punishment calls to mind very certain things – certain things that, frankly, skeeve Stiles the fuck out. And so there’s this moment where all he can think of are things he really, really doesn’t like, and Derek is waiting, and Stiles is in the hot seat and he has to say something.

He blurts out the first thing that meets the criteria he sets; something he knows will be hard and suck and be an actual thing that actually punishes him, but also something that he wants Derek to do to him. He says, “ruin my orgasm,” and Derek seems surprised by the answer.

But, not opposed to it. Not opposed at all. “Okay,” he agrees, and gestures with two fingers for Stiles to stand. “Let’s get started. Clothes off, kneeling on the bed, facing the wall.”

Stiles complies. He strips himself down to his underwear – lacy and baby blue – and climbs up onto the bed on his knees, resting back on his haunches and putting his hands behind his back. He picks a specific spot on the wall to focus on and stares with laser focus, chewing on his bottom lip.

They’re really doing this, he thinks, as he hears the tell tale sign of Derek rustling around in the small box of things they keep under Stiles’ bed. They’re actually doing this. Derek is actually going to punish him. Stiles is actually going to let him. This is by and large the kinkiest thing they’ve ever done, and holy shit, it’s not even that serious. It’s just a ruined orgasm. Stiles tells himself this when Derek takes him by the back of his neck and squeezes, maybe in reassurance or maybe something else, and then uses his grip to pull Stiles where he wants him.

Stiles goes, like a doll. Wherever Derek wants him, he will go.

He winds up with his wrists tied to the headboard of his bed, legs propped up and tied in position by ropes that literally don’t let him lower them. He’s forced to keep them spread and up, in perfect position for Derek to do just whatever the hell he wants to him. Which, frankly, is Stiles’ favorite position to be in no matter how fucked up or weird that sounds.

Derek lays out a bottle of lube on the bed, which Stiles had expected. Next is a familiar old friend of a vibrator, and another one of those sleeves that Stiles half hates half loves. As he eyeballs it all there for him to see, a thought occurs to him out of nowhere. A terrible, terrible thought.

“You’re going to edge me and then ruin my orgasm?” He demands, and Derek looks at him with a blank expression on his face. It’s literally all the answer that Stiles needs. “That’s – daddy. That’s…” he tries to think of an apt word, but all he can come up with is, “…mean.” And it is. It’s one thing to ruin his orgasm in the first place, since Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that Derek is going to do that and then he won’t be coming again until next time he and Derek have sex; which could be…a week from now. So that’s bad enough.

But edging him, too? Making him want to come that bad, only to just…ruin it? Leaving him desperate for a real orgasm for days? It’s mean.

Derek huffs a laugh and produces a ball gag – this one purple with white straps – swinging it around a bit. “You picked the method,” he says in a placating tone of voice, “I get the choice on the execution. And you seem to forget,” his big hand palms at Stiles’ half-chub through his underwear, just gently laying across it without actually caressing it. “…this is mine. I’ll do what I want with it.”

Stiles swallows and lets Derek’s words sink over him, pouring down his body like warm water because he just loves the way Derek can talk to him sometimes. He shivers, and his cock twitches, and he just can’t fucking stand how good Derek can make him feel. Christ, all he’s doing is talking, and Stiles is practically salivating.

“I’m going to make you want to come so bad you’ll think you’d do just about anything to get it.”

Instead of vocalizing any actual words, Stiles just whimpers a bit in the back of his throat, and Derek smiles at him.

“You’ll be gagged and your legs are tied, so if at any point you feel uncomfortable or unsure, or if you think it’s going too far and you can’t handle it – give me three knocks on the wall with your knuckles.”

Stiles is confused for all of three seconds, and then he glances upward to where his wrists are tied. Derek had done it in such a way that he can move his hands and, upon testing, he finds that he’s close enough to the wall that he can gently rap his knuckles against it. He knocks three times, easy and simple, and Derek seems satisfied.

This is going to be intense, Stiles knows it is. He knows that it’ll be limit-pushing. Nothing that’s happening here is strictly something that he has a problem with, but there’s this edge to the entire scene where it’s not really meant to be the best time Stiles ever has in bed. It’s meant to be at least a little not-fun.

That, right there, just might be the most fun part about it. Stiles giving himself and his body over to Derek to do with what he wishes, even while knowing it might be somewhat bad for him. He deserves the bad. He did something wrong, and Derek is his daddy, so Stiles will be punished.

As Derek is bringing the gag up to Stiles’ mouth, Stiles has just one final and last issue to bring up. “Wait,” he says, and Derek does immediately. “Scott. He’s – he might –“

“He might hear,” Derek finishes for him, raising his eyebrows. “He might hear you, whimpering and begging.”

Stiles licks his lips. God fucking dammit, Derek had phrased it just right, just fucking perfectly. It’s Scott, he tells himself, forcing himself to not feel weird about that terribly inconvenient humiliation kink that has him practically coming in his pants at the thought of Scott hearing any of this. It’s fucking Scott, his best friend, his entire life, his soul, and on and on. Scott can hear him having kinky sex. It’s fine.

More likely than not, Scott will just flee the house at the first moan he hears and be gone for hours on end until he deems it safe to return.

“Okay?” Derek asks gently, and Stiles nods.

On the gag goes, and Stiles is silenced, and it’s starting. He breathes out through his nose and closes his eyes for a moment, getting himself ready to take this. Derek makes instant work of pulling Stiles’ panties down just enough so that his cock and balls are exposed, letting the elastic press against his balls and draw the entire thing up a bit higher. He palms it, just a little, and Stiles hitches a breath and watches him.

“You like the idea of this, don’t you?” He asks, and his voice is so low it may as well be a whisper. “I know you do. You like the idea of being the slutty little brat who gets punished as much as you like being a good boy.”

Stiles chews his gag and looks at the ceiling. It’s not like he can say anything in response.

Derek’s fingers walk up and down Stiles’ cock in slow passes, a torturous feeling that only makes him harder and more desperate – and Christ, Derek hasn’t even started yet. “I’m going to ruin you so bad you’ll be fucked up about it for days.”

Stiles’ eyes roll back into his head. He hears the vibrator turn on and if he could physically make his legs spread any wider, then he would do it. As it is, he can only lie there and accept it when Derek presses it against his cock, sliding it up and down again and again. Stiles muffles a moan behind his gag and tosses his head back into his pillow. “I expect a clear warning when you’re close,” Derek says, and Stiles nods a bit mindlessly.

He loves, loves, a good vibrator. And Derek just has so many of them. He’s got one for every day of the week, Stiles is fairly certain, and yet he still has yet to meet one he hasn’t liked. There’s something distinctly feminine about them, which is half of why he enjoys them so much and half of why Derek keeps buying them for him.

Stiles enjoys the feel of it for a while, lost in the pleasure, and then he feels it coming. He hitches up a bit and makes two short warning noises, and the vibrator is removed. It’s not turned off, so Stiles can still hear that stupidly erotic buzzing, but it’s not on him anymore, and he breathes out a sigh. At this point, the experience of not being allowed to come is commonplace. He’s getting better at handling it for a while, or at least better than he was when they first met.

Derek gives his inner thighs some attention with the toy, and it feels ticklish and nice and Stiles squirms a bit, wishing he could kick his legs. Then, it’s back to the teasing on his cock, and he goes pliant and quiet. It goes on like that, and on, and on. Derek vibrates Stiles right up to the edge, and then takes him back down again thanks to Stiles’ persistent warnings.

Stiles doesn’t even know what Derek would do to him if he came without permission on any given day. It’s terrifying to imagine what Derek would do to him if he came without permission in the middle of a fucking punishment. It’s enough incentive to keep him like this for days, most likely.

It’s not until around the fifth time that Stiles starts crying, which is a feat. It used to be the second time that Stiles would burst into tears, but now, he’s as much of a seasoned expert at he can be. Derek had lubed Stiles up and switched over to his hand, the squelching and skin-slapping sound loud in the silence, and Stiles’ legs were shaking. He’s used to the edge, of course he is after being with Derek for so long, but it quite frankly never gets any easier to deal with up to a certain point. And five times of being brought to the edge only for another denial? Yeah. That’s not something Stiles is particularly good at.

When the first few tears roll down Stiles’ cheeks, Derek notices it instantaneously. Of course he does – he’s probably watching every single move Stiles makes like a hawk, waiting for any indication that he’s close to snapping. He says, “here come the waterworks, on time,” in more of a mocking tone of voice than anything else, and Stiles’ cheeks burn in shame and he cries a bit harder. Normally, Derek is at worst condescending about Stiles’ tears and at best completely enamored with them – this time feels somewhat different. He sounds cold, almost distant. “You can cry and beg all you want, sweetheart. I won’t be finished with you until you’ve learned your lesson.”

Stiles shakes, tugging on his restraints and feeling lightheaded. There’s this slight tinge of confusion, at hearing Derek talk to him like that. But he remembers that he’s being punished, and Derek isn’t gentle with him, not now, and he cries because he knows that he doesn’t necessarily deserve Derek’s gentleness.

“Oh, you’ve had enough?”

Stiles muffles something like please behind his gag, and Derek just shakes his head and starts stroking again. Stiles just wants to know how many more times Derek is going to do this. It feels like an excessive amount by now, like Derek should’ve been done ten fucking minutes ago, but it keeps going.

It’s not until Derek brings him close, close, so close he can taste it, and then pulls off again with a bit of a smirk that Stiles actually does start trying to beg. He pulls on his ropes and tries to wiggle somewhere – to get to what point, he isn’t sure – all while making these long pleading noises that sound so pathetic in his own ears he’s amazed he’s not dropping dead from the humiliation of it. Derek tickles Stiles’ balls and Stiles whhhhiinnnneesss, high and desperate, while Derek smiles, just a bit. “Poor baby,” Derek coos, shaking his head with a cluck of his tongue. “Maybe you should’ve thought harder before fucking around with my money, huh?”

If Stiles could speak, he’d be delivering a litany right about now. I’m sorry, daddy, yes you’re so right, daddy, I was so wrong, I’m a brat, I shouldn’t have done that, please, please, please let me come now, please, I’ll suck you, you can fuck me, I’ll take anything, please, please just let me come it’s torture I swear it, it hurts, daddy, please. As it is, he can only nod and cry and look at him with big, begging eyes.

“You like this,” he says, stroking along Stiles’ cock in these looonngggg, slowwwwwwwww drags that have Stiles sobbing against his arm, helpless. “You like it when I torment you like this.”

Stiles tries to angle his body away from Derek’s touch, miserable and turned on and desperate and pathetic.

“You like giving control of your orgasms to me. I control you. I own you.”

Derek picks up his pace, making Stiles shake his head and plead behind his gag, so fucking close to cracking right down the middle. So close to giving in. So close to snapping. The way Derek is talking to him and his fragile and frail mental state right now, and how many times he’s been denied, how hard he’s cried and begged and for nothing – he’s so close. He’s so fucking close.

He really is. He tries to warn Derek, obediently because it’s just hardwired into him even when he’s this desperate. He makes the warning sounds that always have Derek stopping, but Derek doesn’t stop. He keeps going. Stiles frantically tries again, and it falls once more on deaf ears. He’s going to fucking come. He’s literally – unbelievably – going to fucking come.

But Derek hasn’t said that he could. This is all he can think about right now. Derek didn’t say he could come, and he’s so close, but he can’t. Derek didn’t say so. He tries to resist it to the best of his ability, and this mostly just translates to him half-screaming behind his gag for mercy because he can’t, he can’t, he has to come, Derek is killing him. He lets out one last desperate plea that he’s going to fucking come, and then he – does.

The second he does, the immediate second it finally starts to feel good and milliseconds before Stiles actually starts ejaculating, Derek’s hands are off of him like they’ve caught fire. He pulls them off, puts them up in the air as if in surrender, and watches in fascination as Stiles comes across his chest and stomach, his cock jerking on its own in slow, somewhat pathetic bursts as his come drips onto his chest. The look on Derek’s face as it happens is crazy, to Stiles – he parts his lips and his eyes go a bit big, like he’s amazed and shocked.

Stiles has never had a ruined orgasm before. He’s read about them and seen them done in porn, but he always thought the dudes’ reaction to it was a bit of an exaggeration. An orgasm is an orgasm, after all – even a bad one still has to be pretty good, no matter the situation.

Holy shit, was he wrong.

This is awful. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. Normally when Derek edges him, he’s rewarded with an orgasm so fucking good he goes to Mars and comes back down fifteen minutes after coming. It’s what he’s used to. Frankly, it’s what he thinks he deserves, because he’s spoiled, as they’ve all established.

But, holy shit. This? This? The edging for somewhere in the realm of five long years only to be met with an orgasm practically forced out of him that felt more like a sneeze? He sneezed his orgasm out, fast and useless and so horribly terrible, and now he’s just stuck there with a rapidly softening cock. No pleasure. Nothing. And he wants more. That’s the worst part of all. He’s still turned on and horny and even more desperate than he fucking was to start with.

Stiles deflates, but he’s still so fucking wrung out. He’s all tense and agitated and it didn’t even feel good, it felt bad, and he’s tied and can’t do anything about it.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Derek says, voice sounding a little distant. “Unsatisfying? Frustrating?”

Mff, is Stiles’ response to that. He wants to fucking die.

“That’s just too bad. With a buildup like that…I guess that’s just what happens to bratty sluts who think they get everything they want.”

Stiles makes a noise of agreement. If he could talk, he’d be repeating back to Derek that yes, yes sir, he is a bratty slut and yes, yes he deserves this.

“Now,” Derek starts, poking a single finger at Stiles’ entrance. It’s a bit loose, and a bit wet, from all the lube Derek had been pouring over his cock not ten minutes earlier. “I’m going to fuck you. And you’re going to lie there while I take my own pleasure from your body and expect nothing in return. Understood?”

Stiles nods, slowly. He feels very…agreeable. That’s a word for it. Derek can do anything he wants to Stiles, because Stiles is just all his, from top to bottom. Derek owns him, his body, his cock, his everything. It doesn’t matter that Stiles hadn’t really gotten to come and will get nothing but frustration out of this experience – it’s what Derek wants. He’ll do it. Derek pushes aside the underwear and starts fingering him a bit, and Stiles stares blankly at the ceiling and does as he’s told – lies there. He barely feels it, even as his cock desperately tries to harden up again in search of the pleasure he was teased about but never actually given.

When Derek enters him, he hitches up, but remains otherwise still and motionless. And while Derek fucks him, grunting and huffing right into his ear as he leans over him and kisses around the gag and licks his neck and whispers filthy things into his ear, Stiles just moves into it. He doesn’t try to push Derek into his prostate. He doesn’t try to rub his poor, neglected cock against Derek’s body.

He just meets Derek’s thrusts obediently, and wants to please Derek and Derek alone.

Derek comes hard in a way that makes Stiles feel jealous and turned on again, grunting and panting in Stiles’ ear the whole time while Stiles just sits still and waits and feels used. Stiles wants to be afforded the opportunity to come again, he really does, but he knows he won’t get it. Even more to the point, he doesn’t think it would even feel good with the amount of stimulation he’s already had. For all intents and purposes, he’s ruined for the entire day. Which is what Derek had promised in the first place.

When Derek finishes, he immediately pulls out and wastes absolutely no time in taking Stiles’ bondage apart. He starts with the gag, tearing it off and gently helping Stiles work his mouth open and closed, again and again. The touch of his hands on his face is the most gentle Derek has been with him in what seems like hours, and Stiles goes soft and pliant underneath his fingers.

“Hi, baby,” he murmurs, and Stiles meets his eyes. He’s talking to him so nicely, when before he had been so fucking detached and just…just like a dom. Derek must be a little concerned by what he sees there in Stiles’ eyes – glassy and empty, most likely – because he furrows his brow a bit. “Hi. Are you okay?”

Stiles clears his throat. It feels like it’s been years since he last spoke. “Hi,” he says back. Derek patiently waits for a follow up, but there is none. So Derek keeps talking.

“My sweet, sweet good boy,” he croons, cradling his face with one hand while the other works on untying the ropes. His wrists come free first and Derek rubs them a bit, just for a second, before moving onto the ones on his legs. He comes all undone, leaving him just in his pulled down panties and his own come, and Derek doesn’t take his hands off of him, not for one second. “I love you. I am so proud of you. I just – you took that so well. You really are my best good boy.”

Stiles frowns and burrows into Derek’s chest, hiding his face. “I’m a spoiled brat.”

“No,” Derek immediately argues. “No, because you took your punishment. Good boys do that. And you are mine, and I love and care about you so much. Focus on that, for me. How much I love you. I’d do anything for you.”

Derek’s fingers are in his hair and Stiles leans into the touch a bit manically, completely obsessed with Derek’s hands on him. Completely obsessed with Derek in general, as a matter of fact. He practically purrs as Derek strokes his hair and murmurs kind words to him about how good he is, how well Stiles did, and this that and the other thing. He just loves Derek so much.

At one point, Derek says something or other that goes right over Stiles’ head, and he tries to unfurl himself from Stiles’ body to get up and go somewhere else. Stiles, for whatever reason, immediately enters panic mode.

He latches onto Derek like an octopus, gripping onto him with blunt nails that will likely leave marks as the day progresses. He makes this low, nervous noise, but says nothing. He just can’t be alone right now. Derek can’t leave him here by himself right now. He feels so raw. He just wants Derek’s hands on him, Derek telling him he’s good, Derek, and Derek, and Derek.

Derek immediately turns back and puts his hands on Stiles’ face, cradling it like it’s something gentle and important and revered. He says, “no, no, shhh, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t,” Stiles says, voice very small and scared. “I need you, don’t leave.”

“I was just going to get you water. You’re thirsty, aren’t you?”

Stiles starts gripping his hands into Derek’s shirt – because shit, he’s still got that thing on. The exact specifics of what happened and how it all went down feel more hazy than anything else right now; and he abruptly remembers that Scott is still somewhere in this house. He could be listening to this right now, and that embarrasses Stiles, because he’s being so terribly fucking pathetic and needy and desperate right now. He tries to stop, tries to calm down and realize that Derek is literally just going to go down the hall and get him water and he is thirsty, but he just….can’t.

“No,” he lies, and Derek gives him this look. It’s this half-amused, half-nervous, half-upset look that blows Stiles’ mind to see.

“I should’ve just left some on the table before we got started,” he mutters under his breath, furrowing his brow and stroking Stiles’ back, up and down. “I apologize, baby. My fault. I should’ve known you’d be fragile.”

Fragile. That’s exactly the word for how Stiles feels right about now. Like one harsh word from Derek would break him into a million pieces. Like Derek leaving him by himself could only lead to a breakdown, because he’s all torn open and he needs, needs, Derek touching him and reassuring him.

“You want a bath?” He suggests, pressing his lips to Stiles’ temple. Stiles slowly nods against Derek’s shoulder, and Derek immediately grips him a bit tighter and arranges him in such a way that it’s easy to stand and pick him up in one go. Derek is strong, and Stiles is skinny, but Stiles is still a fully grown man and Derek isn’t the incredible Hulk, so he grunts a bit as he rises with Stiles, holding him tight against him.

He walks down the hallway and the house is quiet. Stiles could fall asleep like this.

Instead, Derek flicks on the bright bathroom lights and then sets Stiles down on the edge of the tub, leaning over to fiddle with the controls, just like last time this happened. Stiles at least has enough presence of mind to recognize that he’s in subspace. Deep, it feels like. Being able to assign a name to the feeling makes him calm down some, and he calms even more every single time Derek brushes his fingers against Stiles’ bare skin.

A glass of water is in Stiles’ face, then, and he takes it. He drinks it greedy, and Derek watches him like a hawk, a serious and thoughtful expression on his face. He says, “not thirsty, huh?” in a teasing tone, and Stiles meets his eyes and finishes the glass off, holding it back out for Derek to take.

“Can I please have more?”

“Anything,” Derek agrees lightning fast, taking it and refilling it over at the sink in one fell swoop. “Anything you want or ask for, you can have.”

The second glass is given to him, and he drinks that as the water rushes behind his ears and into the tub. It pitter patters and it’s soothing, and the heat rising from the steam makes him feel better, and Derek still has his eyes on him like there’s nothing else he’d rather be looking at. There is probably literally nothing else on earth Derek is more interested in right now than making sure that Stiles is okay. And Stiles is fine, he is, he’s just a little…. well.

When he finishes up, he says, “how about a real orgasm?”

Derek laughs. The noise is so nice in Stiles’ ears, like he wants to climb inside that laugh and live there in the crinkles around Derek’s eyes as he laughs, and laughs. His big hand comes out to once again cradle Stiles’ face, and Stiles likes it so much, to be touched. “My good boy,” he says, and Stiles smiles faintly. “There you are.”

Here Stiles is. He’s still fucked out and dumb, and his cock honestly feels sensitive enough and unsatisfied enough that if he brushed it up against a towel it would get hard and he’d be back to begging like a bitch to come, but he’s okay. He’s fine. Derek is here and the water is on and the punishment is done. And Derek says that Stiles did well.

They climb inside after Derek strips himself of what little clothes he had on and dumps some bath salts into the water that smell like roses, and he pulls Stiles down in with him. He pulls Stiles flush up against his chest and puts his chin on Stiles’ shoulder, perching it there and breathing against Stiles’ neck. “Let’s talk,” he says, voice gentle at the same time that it’s very serious. “That was your first punishment and it was really intense, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees, because holy hell, was it ever.

“Talk to me. Tell me anything you feel about it. I’m listening, baby, just talk. How’d it feel?”

Stiles leans back into him and looks up at the ceiling. There’s a stain there, and it’s almost weird to see it and be this close to Derek. It’s a defect, a discoloration, something imperfect and wrong, and Derek doesn’t know anything about that. All his things are perfect. All his things are shiny and new and if they aren’t, he replaces them. Stiles doesn’t even know why he’s thinking about that, right now, but he focuses on the stain and Derek’s steady breathing, and parts his lips. “The way you talked to me at some points,” he starts, and Derek just listens. “It felt really – unforgiving.”

Derek runs wets fingers up Stiles’ chest, kissing him on the neck. “It was a punishment,” he reminds Stiles mildly. “I wasn’t trying to be nice.”

“You’re not nice,” Stiles says in a low tone. “You’re really not nice. But you – you are to me. You do bad things to make money and you dislike everyone except for me. But you can be so nice to me, daddy, and I like – I like that.”

“And you don’t so much care for when I’m not that nice anymore, huh?” He clarifies, even though Stiles is mostly just babbling and likely not making any sense. But Derek just gets it. Because he gets Stiles, all the time. “So that was the real punishment, then, for you? Not the edging or the orgasm or having your car taken away. It was just me being distant.”

Stiles leans into him closer, sighing through his nose. “Yeah,” he agrees, and Derek kisses him on the forehead, once, twice, three times.

“You know I could never really be distant towards you. It was just a scene. I could never treat you like that in real time, I never would.”

“I know,” he says, because he does. The separation between scene and reality can sometimes get scary, and fuzzy, and it all gets convoluted in Stiles’ head when he gets lost in it. But Derek is just so good at talking him down, at holding him and being so gentle and nice and forgiving and calm even when Stiles is hanging on by a thread, that he effortlessly manages to pull Stiles out of it every time. He reminds Stiles that there is a clear separation. Derek enjoys tearing Stiles apart in bed, but he would never, no matter what happened, be able to physically harm Stiles – or at least, not in a way that Stiles wasn’t begging for. “But for the record, the car being taken away holds precedent above all else.”

Derek huffs and shakes his head, so Stiles feels it against his skin. “That’s two weeks, no car. Okay? If you want a ride to work, I’ll arrange it. You’ll come with me every morning.”

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, wet thumb going up to his mouth for him to chew on the nail. He says, “I really am sorry.”

“Shhh,” he says, cradling Stiles’ head against his chest and sighing through his nose – Stiles feels it blowing against his eyelashes as he slowly closes his eyes and thinks of falling asleep. “No more sorry’s. It’s over, it’s done. No one is mad anymore, no one’s in trouble.”

Stiles bites at his thumb some more and lets Derek stroke him on his bare skin a bit, reverent and soft, and out of nowhere, maybe just from the reassurance that Derek isn’t angry at him, he’s suddenly smiling. “What was the uh…exact charge on the card?”

“An absurd amount of money from Wal Mart’s sporting goods department.” He says, and then he’s smiling a little bit too. It is…just a little bit fucking funny, upon reflection. “I knew instantly what it was, especially considering the time stamp on it. 1:34 AM.”

Stiles snorts.

***

Stiles half runs to the town car parked outside of his house early on Tuesday morning, flying down the path up to his house and nearly ripping the door off its hinges as soon as he’s got his hands on it. “Daddy, I have news,” he shouts, climbing into the car to find Derek sat with a vaguely amused expression on his face.  
“I have coffee,” he counters, picking up a take away cup from the holder and handing it off to Stiles. Immediately, Stiles is downing two giant sips, nearly burning his tongue off in the process but not caring.

He swallows and clutches his coffee against his chest, leaning close into Derek’s personal space. “I got a call back!”

“This is not surprising to me.” Derek adjusts his sunglasses on his face, and has next to no reaction. It’s surprising to Stiles that Derek is sitting there in a car with windows so tinted they’re nearly blacked out wearing fucking sunglasses. “I knew you’d get hired. Which place was it?”

“Your lack of enthusiasm is a bummer,” he points out, and follows it up with, “and it’s the fucking Chronicle, dude. They want me on to do the fucking art beat. The art beat.”

“Make sure you include a short paragraph on the time you were drunk at the Silver Snake and started hallucinating Basquiats left and right.”

Stiles punches him lightly in the shoulder, but he laughs as he does it, too overjoyed to care about Derek’s teasing. And anyway, beneath his tough as nails exterior and his blasé attitude, Stiles knows that Derek is proud. He becomes even more sure of it when Derek leans in and kisses him on the lips, stroking at his cheek and smiling softly at him. “Did you take it?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m putting in my two weeks today. Oh, man,” he thumps back into the leather seating and breathes out through his nose, in a state of disbelief. “The temptation to just flat out not show up is so fucking strong…”

“Be responsible, even though it sucks,” Derek shakes his head, patting Stiles on the shoulder. “It’s good word of mouth if all your employers leave you on a good note.”

“How do you even know what’s good in business?” Stiles demands, lifting a single brow. He holds his coffee against his chest and watches as Derek takes his sunglasses off to fully address Stiles, turning his body to face him with an incredulous smile.

“I went to business school. Graduated with honors.”

“Uh-huh. So you could get better at…what?” He smirks against his coffee while Derek gives him a look.

“So I could get better at running a business for the mere sake of putting up a front,” he adjusts his sleeves and shrugs, casual as all get out. “I’m very smart.”

“My dad says you’re good at cleaning up.” He plays with the lid of his cup and smiles a little bit.

“I’m a ghost,” is what his response is, as they come to a slow stop right in front of Stiles’ office building where the hellmouth of the Daily Beacon awaits him. “It’s like trying to catch smoke.”

Stiles can’t say that he knows Derek like that. He cannot say that he’s familiar with a Derek who’s unfindable, untraceable, a blip on the radar screen. He doesn’t know a Derek who’s closed off and vague and very good at covering up what has to be covered up. The Derek he knows is honest and always there, always around, always at Stiles’ beck and call.

But he knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that what Derek says is true. He is a ghost, to the rest of the world. A figure that appears and vanishes, and Stiles is just the lucky person who manages to catch him.

“Have a good day,” he leans in, pecks Stiles on the mouth. “Try not to crack halfway through the day and cause a scene.”

***

Stiles cracks halfway through the day and causes a scene.  
He receives a phone call immediately after his lunch break that questions him about their subscription prices. Stiles leans back in his chair and explains, for the ten thousandth time, the price ranges and what you get and why they should choose the Beacon over any other paper in the city.

“And anyway,” the man on the other line says, “newspaper is a dying industry, anyway. Journalism is –“

“Evolving,” Stiles corrects, narrowing his eyes. “Journalism is evolving. Maybe papers to your door are what’s dying, but online journalism is a –“

“I just think it’s a waste of time.”

Stiles blinks. “Then why are you calling me?”

“What?”

“I said,” he leans forward in his chair, scowling, “why are you calling me harassing me about prices, belligerently at that, if you think it’s a waste of your time?”

The man on the other line sputters, like he honestly cannot believe Stiles has had the gall to say anything, let alone a drag so precise he can barely fathom words in the wake of it.

“And another thing,” he starts, and then before he can really stop himself, he’s unleashing. It all comes out of him like opening up a fire hydrant, unstoppable and uncontainable. Every single thing he had wished he had said to customers in the past, every conversation and comeback he fantasized about while staring angrily at his ceiling after a long, hard day at work. It all just…spills.

“I don’t set the fucking prices. I’m a kid at a desk making barely above minimum wage with a headset stuffed into my ear doing all the dirty work and talking to all the scum that the city has to offer, day in, day out, and you decide to call me up because you’re having a shitty day just to tell me, the broke journalism major deep in student loan debt, that it’s a dying industry. Thank you, you fucking champion of industries, for your god damn input. You fucking cockroach. That’s it,” he’s up, out of his desk, ripping the headset off without even bothering to hang up the call. He doesn’t care that it’s stupid and immature. He doesn’t care that Derek’s advice had been true and accurate.

He's 23 years old. His days of being immature are passing and passing fast, and he’ll be reckless. “I’m done!” He shouts, so loud that a couple of people milling around down the hall stop to stare at him. “I quit!”

He collects his bag and his half-empty third coffee of the day as his swivel chair spins out and rolls away, shuffling away from the desk where he can hear the distant sound of the man on the other line attempting to yell at him, falling upon deaf ears. His boss steps out, puts one hand in his pocket, and sips his coffee – watches with a shrewd gaze as Stiles flips him the middle finger and vanishes out the double doors, gone for good. His boss wasn’t even really that bad of a guy; a little gross, yeah, and certainly hellbent on keeping Stiles as his little bitch secretary when Stiles was way better than that; but still, not a horrible dude.

He's not saying he regrets flipping him off. But he should at least admit it wasn’t entirely necessary.

As soon as he’s out in the sunshine, Stiles has got Derek ringing. He picks up after two, which isn’t surprising. He has never in his life missed a phone call from Stiles, no matter what time of day or where he was or what he was doing. It’s almost comical to imagine Derek in a basement somewhere with one of those really bright lights, standing over a metal table with a bunch of other shady looking people and there are guns all over the place and money being tossed around – and then his phone buzzes and it’s Stiles talking about Scott’s latest disaster with the washing machine.

Even funnier is that Derek stands there, in the middle of a room full of criminals, listening and talking back. Every time.

“Daddy, I need a ride.”

Derek huffs. “You quit.”

“I snapped is what I did. You should hear the way some people talk to me on that stupid thing,” he paces around in front of the office building, paying no mind to the people around him giving him a wide berth as if they can feel his rage like a physical forcefield. “And I just thought – you were right. Derek, you were really right. I don’t deserve to be talked to like that. It’s like abuse, you know?”

“That’s right. You don’t.”

“And I’m a good – I’m a good writer. And they were making me do that job because I’m just a kid, but they can suck my ass. I’m not stupid. I’m better than that dumb job. And the Chronicle – it’s pennies, but it’s what I deserve to be doing. I’m good.”

“Yes,” Derek agrees instantly, no hesitation.

“I called a customer a fucking cockroach.”

There’s a long pause on the other line, and then the distinct sound of Derek laughing.

Stiles puts his hand on his hip and frowns, pacing around some more. “Are you coming to get me? I can’t be outside this building for long. It’s feeding me demonic energy, I’m getting bad vibes.”

“Yes,” he says, and there’s some shuffling on the other line like he’s moving somewhere. “Why don’t you just come back to my place? You can stay while I get some work done.”

It’s nothing unlike the hundreds if not thousands of times Derek has said that he has to “get some work done”, but it gives Stiles some pause all the same. Before, when Derek would say that, Stiles would imagine him behind a desk crunching numbers and chewing on a pencil. Now, he imagines…something else entirely. He imagines he has to go beat the money out of some poor soul who got caught up selling for him and now can’t meet his fucking quota. It’s half unsavory, and half hot as all fucking hell.

“Hey, uh,” Stiles runs his free hand over the back of his neck, pacing a bit more – this time, heading off toward the smoothie place down the way. “…are we done with the whole…taking it slow, bit?”

Derek is quiet. Then he says, “I was waiting for your word.”

“My word is here. Here it is – word. I want in your bed.”

Across the line, Derek laughs, just a bit darkly. He says, “as you want it,” and Stiles bites his lip and feels like he’s on top of the fucking world.

He gets a smoothie and sits outside on one of the benches next to a tree, waiting for Derek to come and collect him. It’s an unfortunate reality then, that he never shows up. Apparently he is either completely oblivious, stupid, or just felt like throwing them together as some form of twisted part two to Stiles’ punishment for buying the BMX, because twenty minutes after Stiles hangs up with him, a deep black Escalade is screaming to a stop right in front of where he’s sitting on the sidewalk.

The tinted window rolls down and Erica Reyes is in the driver’s seat, smoking a cigarette and frowning at him with purple lips. She barks, “get in, boytoy,” and Stiles stares at her. He looks down at his smoothie, at his dorky messenger’s bag and his silly work outfit, and thinks about refusing. “Hey,” she calls when Stiles just sits there staring at her for too long. “Derek sent me to get you, and if he comes home and you’re not in his apartment it’ll be me losing one of my fingers.”

Stiles stares at her some more. “He’d cut off your fingers?”

She grins, all white teeth and deep purple malice. “Get in.”

Seeing no other alternative, and knowing that if Derek heard that Stiles outright refused to get into Erica Reyes’ car he’d be in trouble again, he stands up and hobbles up to the Escalade. It is not surprising, not in the least bit, that Erica pulls the good-old revving the engine and shooting forward three inches right as Stiles has got his hand on the door handle trick. She does it once, grins even harder, and then starts outright laughing when she does it a second time.

Stiles abruptly doesn’t care about Derek’s anger and begins marching off and away from her, back towards his office building, fed up. But she follows him, inching along beside him with her foot barely on the gas. “Aw, come on, boytoy, I was kidding. I was just messing around.”

“Can you not call me boytoy?”

She cocks her head to the side, squeaking to a stop at the exact same moment Stiles whips around and glares at her through the open window. “Stiles,” she says, and Stiles huffs through his nose, wondering if Erica knew his name even before Stiles met Derek. It’s not unlikely, and that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. He really does not like this fucking girl – not one god damn bit.

With all the self-loathing in the world, he opens up the door and gets inside. It’s cheerily air conditioned and smells like apples and cinnamon from an air freshener she’s got stuck onto one of her vents. There’s music playing softly from a sleek black iPhone she’s got hooked up to the stereo. Stiles sits there with his smoothie and wishes he could melt, but Erica turns to him with another one of those shit-eating grins as she stubs her cigarette out in an open ashtray. “Buckle up, sweetheart,” she shoves a pair of sunglasses onto her face and turns back to the road, merging with traffic a bit fearlessly, “Capone went down for tax evasion, after all.”

With a bit of a grumble under his breath, Stiles clicks himself in and sinks deep into his seat. He cannot believe Derek did this to him. He could’ve sent Boyd, who Stiles is pretty sure cannot physically speak, or even Lydia – who glares at him, yes, but would at least be primly quiet and polite out of necessity or at least respect for Derek.

Erica seems to respect nothing and no one. He looks at her hands and sees she’s got all ten fingers, gripping the wheel and interspersed with rings and blue nail polish, and glowers. Maybe Derek should start cutting off people’s fingers. Namely hers.

I'm

“So, I heard ya quit,” she says, glancing sidelong at him.

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. “Look, let’s not small talk. I know you hate the very air I breathe, so –“

“Whoa,” she laughs, nose crinkling up. “I wouldn’t go that far. Like, yeah, I think it’s a terrible idea that Derek is with you and yeah, I think he’s thinking with his dick and not much else, and yeah, I fear that I’ll wind up in prison because of you, but,” she shrugs, like all of that is just semantics. “Hate is a strong word. I’m a very open person, you know? I can roll with the punches,” she takes a right turn, very very hard, nearly sending Stiles careening into his window even with his seatbelt on. “…you’re not my favorite person. But becoming your enemy doesn’t necessarily suit me.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think I’d turn you in?” He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “I’m not that fucking vindictive.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she slows at a red light, frowning at it like it’s doing her and her need for speed a great disservice. “I mean, you’re Derek Hale’s favorite thing on planet earth, currently, and I’m underneath his thumb. Pretty far and deep underneath, as a matter of fact.”

Stiles swallows, staring at the side of her face. She’s casually leaned back against her seat, one hand draped over the wheel as she talks and Ariana Grande plays underneath her voice. She looks like this conversation is nothing to her, nothing at all, while Stiles is honestly a little…well. He doesn’t know what he is. Every time he thinks he’s gotten acquainted with all of Derek’s little secrets and this and that’s, something else comes out of the woodwork that makes him question it.

“Getting on your bad side can only mean getting on Derek’s bad side. And Derek’s bad side…” she trails off for a moment, revving the engine and speeding past the other drivers on the road as she takes a familiar turn toward the edge of town, where Beacon Terrace stands in all its glory. “…well. Let’s just say it’s not where you want to be. Least of all me. I’m Derek’s right hand – or didn’t he tell you?”

“He doesn’t tell me much,” he confesses, staring out the windshield with a frown on his face.

“I’d hate to get demoted just because his twink boyfriend doesn’t like me.”

“Then I recommend you stop calling me a twink,” he snaps, and she turns to give him this look. It almost looks pleased, or impressed.

“Anyway, that’s why I volunteered to pick you up before Boyd or Lydia or any of those other idiots over there could get a word in edgewise,” she makes the turn into Beacon Terrace’s parking lot and cruises slowly down the rows of cars. “It would be very nice for Derek to hear a good word about me from your mouth.”

She slams to a stop right at the entry way, pulling into park and giving Stiles another one of those big, big grins. He stares at her for a moment, trying to calculate her motives, or figure her out, or even get to the bottom of what this conversation is about. “You really think I’d have great words to say about you when up until now you’ve been nothing but cold to me at best?”

“Listen,” her sunglasses come off, and she looks Stiles right in the eyes. It’s almost unnerving to be looked at so critically by this person; it’s like she could melt his face off if she tried hard enough. “I am leveling with you and stooping below my level to grovel just the tiniest bit. I’m admitting that your word has power over me, all right? He’s been – angry with me. Lately,” she frowns and glares, and Stiles just looks at her and cannot believe this conversation is happening.

Is he seriously now somehow involved in, like, the hierarchal politics of a drug trafficking organization? Is this his fucking life now? And she’s taking it so fucking seriously. Holy shit…

“And I know it’s because you said something to him about me, because of course it’s fucking you. It’s like oh, suddenly, Derek isn’t at the top of the food chain anymore, you are. Which is just –“ she grits her teeth and looks at him like she wants to rip his fucking head off, claw his eyes out with her blue nails, and Stiles has to look away. “…it’s ridiculous. But fine. Whatever. I can play ball. You want a favor? What do you want?”

“I –“

“You got your car taken away. I can talk him into –“

“Are you really trying to bribe me into saying something nice to him about you?”

She grits her teeth. “Yes.” It’s like it causes her physical pain to admit it.

Stiles just shakes his head. “I want you to not treat me with disdain any more, how’s that for a trade off?”

“Great,” she snaps, and then makes a waving gesture with her hand. “It’s a deal, now be gone.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and pops the door open. There is truly nothing more to be said in this conversation – frankly, he’s miffed that he even actively participated in it. This is the kind of shit that he hadn’t even thought about when Derek told him about his life. This is, like, high school but featuring illicit substances and the occasional shoot-out, or something. It must mean a whole lot to be Derek’s right-hand, if Erica is willing to swallow what seems like a very huge ego and eighteen gallons worth of pride to practically buy Stiles off just Stiles will say that she’s not a huge bitch.

Jesus Christ, he thinks, walking inside the building and shaking his head. What even is he getting himself into?

When Derek gets back to the apartment, he figures Erica was right. Stiles mentioned exactly once that he felt Erica hated him and said mean things about him, and clearly Derek filed it away to examine further, because one of the first things he says when he walks through the door is, “and how was Erica? Pleasant enough?”

Stiles leans back in his spot on the couch, fiddling with the bright pink umbrella he had shoved into his Dr. Pepper. He thinks for a moment about saying she was awful she said this that and the other thing, she did this, she was terrible, and on and on – and he wonders what Derek’s reaction would be.

Not a very good one. He’s certain that Derek doesn’t cut people’s fingers off – but then he has to wonder what he does do. You don’t wind up at the top of an organization like this by being lenient, or even very nice. He says, “she was actually nice. I guess I had her, uh, pegged wrong.”

Derek’s eyebrows go up and he looks pleased. Stiles cannot. Believe. This. Shit. It’s that easy. One word from him – and it’s that fucking easy. “She can be prickly, make no mistake,” he assures Stiles, sitting down with him on the couch and stretching out like a tired cat. He always, always seems so fucking drained after a day doing what he does; and not just physically. “But she was nice, huh?”

“Nice is a strong word,” he says, because he can’t lie that well. Especially not for Erica’s sake. “She was just fine.”

“Okay,” Derek smiles lazily, leaning back into his cushions and sighing. “Just fine is fine.”

“She uh,” Stiles scratches at his cheek, watching the movie playing with one eye. “She mentioned being your right hand.”

“My second,” he corrects, giving Stiles a bit of a look.

“What does that…you know,” he gestures his hand out a bit, “..,mean?”

There’s a brief pause, where Derek looks at Stiles as if this entire conversation makes him uncomfortable, or like this is the last thing on planet earth he wants to be discussing with Stiles, of all people. He says, “she does what I can’t.”

What he can’t. Stiles dissects the sentence word for word in the short amount of time he has to do so, analyzing it down to its details – he would bet money that Erica is more ruthless than Derek could ever hope to be. He knows that Derek has a conscience, he knows that Derek isn’t a horrible awful sociopath with no regard for other people, he knows that.

He does not know the same about Erica. In fact, Erica seems to care about only one thing – and that’s herself.

“You want a pizza?” Derek asks, changing the subject lightning quick, while Stiles just bites his lip and shrugs.

***

Stiles is about ten seconds away from picking up his water glass and hauling it across the room at the wall. He thinks about it so vividly, imagines the condensation on his skin, fantasizes about how people would scatter and be surprised and he would be kicked out of the restaurant. He grits his teeth, looks at the time of his phone again, glances across the table at his father. Who’s sitting there with this expression on his face.  
He wouldn’t call it angry, and he wouldn’t call it disappointed. Stiles would call it incredibly satisfied. Because Derek is late, on the one night where Stiles might actually give a shit about twenty minutes, and his dad is probably fucking loving every second of it. Of course Derek is late, he’s probably thinking, with a note of giddiness. He’s scum, and he shouldn’t be around Stiles, and on and on and on.

Then, of course, there’s the implication. Derek being twenty minutes late to dinner with the Sheriff has about sixteen fucking thousand different implications for where he is, what it is he’s doing, and Stiles swears to God, on everything walking the earth, that if Derek did it on purpose…

He’s thought several times over about the comment the Sheriff had made in his office that day – how Derek is constantly just laughing in his face, with his money and his cars and his nice things that he expertly explains away through flawless bending of the law. Derek probably gets off on that shit somehow. Stiles would honestly flip the table over if he found out Derek had done this as another huge middle finger, he would honestly be so angry he’d have to be quarantined.

“He’s late,” his dad finally comments, and Stiles imagines shoving a piece of bread down his throat to choke him.

“He’s probably stuck in traffic.” Beacon Hills and traffic are not two words that are usually used together in a sentence, and both of them know it. They stare at each other for a moment, and Stiles can’t help himself from checking the time again.

He’s twenty-three minutes late now, and Stiles clenches his jaw.

“I hope you realize the kind of things people are going to say if they hear I had dinner with this guy,” and he’s always referring to Derek with some bullshit like that. This guy, that person, your boyfriend. All of the terms ring with an undercurrent of barely restrained animosity, and it annoys Stiles to no fucking end. “His family name alone –“

“How many times do we have to have this conversation?” Stiles grouses – twenty-five minutes – as he looks over his shoulder at the front door for the thousandth time. “What people say about him and who he actually is are two different things.”

The Sheriff leans back into the booth, chewing for a long moment on another piece of buttered bread. He’s wearing a button down and nice dress pants, combed hair, eyes clear. It’s a pretty good meeting the boyfriend outfit, so at least at the bare minimum the man gives some iota of a shit about this night. “It would be humiliating if I started parading him around like my son-in-law and then two months later have to book him –“

“God,” Stiles snaps, checking his phone again. Twenty-seven minutes. “I told you this was important to me, and he’s not even here yet and you’re already being a jerk about it.”

The Sheriff shrugs. “If he had gotten here on time, I wouldn’t have the time to say a word.”

Stiles is going to punch someone’s nose bones deep into their skull before this night is over. He can already fucking tell. There’s only so much mental strength a person can afford to not absolutely losing their mind, after all.

Finally, right at the thirty-seven minute mark, Derek is sweeping across the restaurant on quick feet, dodging chairs pushed out too far and waiters carrying trays and liquor. He approaches the table and runs a hand through his hair, maybe a nervous tick, and flits his eyes quickly between the Sheriff and Stiles before they land and settle right on Stiles.

Stiles cannot be outwardly angry with Derek right now. He presses a big smile onto his face and looks as benign as he possibly can, like he’s just relieved that Derek got here okay and isn’t annoyed at all – but Derek must see it in his eyes. The smile doesn’t even touch them, doesn’t crinkle them in the least bit, and Derek sees it. Stiles can tell just from the way he hesitates before speaking that he knows.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he says as soon as he’s close enough, and the Sheriff turns to look at him with no expression on his face. “I got caught with a needy client.”

“It’s fine,” Stiles says too quickly. His tone is a bit clipped, and Derek flashes him another look.

“Sheriff,” Derek greets, reaching his hand out before sitting down. It’s a blessed thing that his father immediately reciprocates, shaking the hand as it’s offered and making eye contact.

“Hale,” he parrots back in the same tone of voice, and then Derek is sitting down right next to Stiles, making the cushioning under Stiles’ body jerk.

Derek leans over and pecks Stiles on the lips, quick and chaste, and Stiles mostly goes icy cold still underneath his touch. He doesn’t reciprocate it at all, just goes along with it for the show and so his father won’t get any satisfaction out of seeing Stiles being angry with Derek right in front of him. It’s just – Stiles must have reiterated the importance of making even a slightly good impression on the Sheriff a thousand fucking times.

And Derek shows up half a fucking hour late. The more he thinks about, the more annoyed he gets.

“…what was the client?” Stiles’ dad inquires, probably fishing for information or trying to sniff out the lie. Stiles had expected a little (or, let’s be honest – a lot) of that tonight, so he doesn’t even bat an eyelash, turning to Derek to listen up to this himself.

Derek just straightens up, and says in a very small-talk friendly voice, “widow of a wealthy man. He left her pretty much everything and she doesn’t know where to start.”

That is clearly not the answer that the Sheriff had been expecting. He was expecting a very poorly disguised lie, something he could immediately call Derek out on and get him sent into the slammer for; but no. Derek talks smoothly and with a pleasant smile on his face, and it sounds honest.

“She barely knew how much to pay me hourly,” he goes on, scanning his eyes over the restaurant as if hunting for their waitress. He doesn’t even know what she looks like, just yet, so Stiles doesn’t know why he’s bothering. “One of those people who makes me money just from ignorance. I couldn’t get away.”

Stiles pointedly grabs at another piece of bread from the basket, nodding along as if he’s fascinated. He’s still thinking about thirty-seven minutes, if he’s being honest.

“Do you have a large client base?”

“Decently sized. We get good word of mouth. It helps that I’m good looking.”

It’s another one of those pompous, idiotic things Derek has a tendency to say from time to time that make him vaguely unlikeable. He can be so full of himself sometimes, or at least, on the surface it may seem that way. But Stiles knows him, back and front, and can say only this; Derek is very, very good at putting on a façade and smirking and seeming to be as confident and sturdy as the roots of trees. Whether or not it’s the reality of how he feels…well. It depends on the situation.

It's a good thing the Sheriff doesn’t seem to take offense to the comment at all, just nodding along and squinting his eyes as if in interest. “In one-on-one support type jobs like that, good looks can be an asset.”

It’s small talk. Most likely, both of them are forcing themselves through every single word like swallowing glass – but hey. They’re doing it. It’s a point of pride and lowkey glee for Stiles to know that both of them are willing to go through this if only because they know it’s important to Stiles. It’s nice to be so genuinely cared about.

After Derek puts in his drink order with the friendly waitress who seems a little baffled at the sight of all three of them – likely, she’s trying to figure out what their relation to one another is and sadly two gay lovers and one of their parents seems to not be clicking in her probably-straight mind – he excuses himself to go to the restroom, and Stiles huffs.

The Sheriff watches him go, eyes following his every move, and as soon as he’s around the corner and out of sight, he shakes his head as if in disbelief. Like the fact that he exists is astounding, somehow.

“One thing I’ve always been able to say about that man,” that man, Stiles mimcs back to himself in his head as he fiddles with his straw, “…he can be very charming. And he is handsome.”

“Gee, dad, do you wanna date him?”

The Sheriff gives him a pointed look, and then he shakes his head again. “I just meant I get why you’d be somewhat interested.”

“I’m not somewhat interested,” he calmly argues back. “We’re serious.”

His father doesn’t look happy about that. Not one fucking bit. But for once, he doesn’t make any commentary on it. Instead, he returns to perusing the menu with a tight expression on his face. He is screaming in full volume surround sound behind his teeth, Stiles is sure of it.

Stiles’ phone buzzes on the table, which the Sheriff ignores because he’s just used to it like everyone else is by now. Stiles leans over and sees that he’s got a text notification from…Derek. Who is literally in the same building with him right now as they speak and shouldn’t need to be texting him like this. He furrows his brow and scoops the thing up into his fingers, sliding it open to read.

Daddy, 7:45 PM : I am so sorry I was late, I can tell you’re upset. If it makes you feel any better I didn’t even lie – I was genuinely caught up with that woman for hours on end. I know how important this was to you and I’m so sorry I fucked the start of it up. I should’ve called. I love you.

Stiles blacks his screen and bites his lip a bit. It’s always so easy to forgive Derek because his apologies come near instantaneously every single time. He can always tell when Stiles is upset and can always sniff out the source of it, and he’s absurdly good at admitting wrongdoing. You’d think someone like Derek wouldn’t be, but he’s at least that way with Stiles.

And he was thoughtful to go to the bathroom to hastily type out that text so he wouldn’t be sitting there in front of Stiles’ dad on his phone, rude and obnoxious. Stiles sees Derek returning, adjusting his tie and running a hand through his hair like he’s so fond of doing, and shoots him a more genuine smile as he gets closer.

When he sits down, Stiles makes it a point to press his shoulder right against Derek’s. He runs his fingers along the choker around his neck as if silently reminding them both of the meaning behind it, and feels much better. Derek is so good at that; making Stiles feel better. He’s a natural, really.

The rest of the night goes by decently well; or at least, as well as it possibly could. Nobody comes to blows, which is more than Stiles could’ve hoped for, but there were moments. Several moments, at that. Derek would say something, and then the Sheriff would say something, and it would somehow come back to Stiles who was really just an innocent bystander the entire night, but it would get…heated. Very quietly heated, but heated all the same. Because apparently, the one thing the two of them cannot agree on is Stiles.

Which is weird. Because Stiles is their one shared variable. But Sheriff hates that Derek puts his hands on Stiles and Derek hates that the Sheriff is Stiles’ father, and both of them hate, hate, hate, hate, that the other has any say or pull in Stiles’ life whatsoever. Stiles knows that Derek fucking hates his father. He knows it. It’s something he’s just going to have to either make more manageable or live with. And he also knows that the Sheriff hates Derek.

The sheer fact that they were willing to come here and do this and actually manage to leave without anyone getting a black eye – well. Maybe that’s as close as Stiles will ever get. Still, Stiles is unbelievably pleased with Derek as they walk out to the car, fingers laced together, and he keeps shooting these tiny little grins in his oblivious direction.

They make it to Derek’s car, and Stiles pushes Derek up against the thing and kisses him on the mouth – hot and hard as possible. Derek returns the favor, running his fingers up and down Stiles’ chest and kissing back with fervor. They’re publicly making out in front of one of the fanciest restaurants in Beacon Hills, and hell, for all Stiles knows his father is still milling around seeing this and going red around the edges of his vision, but Stiles can’t care right now.

They pull apart just long enough for Stiles to say, “let’s get in the backseat.”

Derek raises his eyebrows. “Why would you want to do that?”

Matter of fact and to the point, Stiles licks his lips and says, “I want to suck you off.”

Instead of looking at all surprised – because really, at this point, why would he be? – Derek just raises a single eyebrow and looks around himself. He gazes at the restaurant, the nearly packed full parking lot, the busy street right next to them, and says, “here? Now?”

Stiles looks at his face, in the dim lighting from the overhead parking lot lights, and just stares for a moment. He really is very good looking, which isn’t news, but it sometimes hits him like lightning when he remembers it. And Stiles is so lucky, and Derek treats him so well and gives him everything he wants, so he nods. “Here, now.”

It isn’t like Derek needs to be told twice. They pile into the backseat where there’s plenty of leg room, Derek sitting with his legs spread wide enough for Stiles to crawl down in between them and slam the door behind them. It’s better back here, with the windows tinted darker and all the space, and Stiles likes how quiet it is. In here, all either of them will be able to hear is Stiles’ mouth moving against Derek’s skin and whatever sounds Derek feels appropriate to make in the moment.

As he undoes Derek’s belt and tugs at the zipper, he speaks. “Thanks for everything. And of course, I forgive you for being late.”

He pulls Derek’s cock out, admires it for a moment. “One of the pitfalls of having two jobs is that it affords very little time for anything else,” he says, voice quiet and low in the confines of the car. “Is this your way of accepting my apology?”

Derek’s hand reaches down and cradles Stiles’ jaw, a light smile playing at the edges of his lips. Stiles leans into the touch, rubbing his cheek against Derek’s palm. “That, and for being so civil.”

He leans forward and pulls Derek into his mouth, resting his hands on the man’s thighs and loving how he tastes on Stiles’ tongue.

Stiles sucks, feeling comfortable in between Derek’s legs on his knees – almost too comfortable, if he’s being honest with himself. He pulls off and licks at the head a bit, moving his lips down to kiss all along the shaft until getting down to the balls, where he flicks his tongue. Stiles takes the time to glance up and gauge Derek’s reaction, and finds him in much the same state he always is in whenever Stiles goes down on him.

He’s got his head tilted back and his eyes shut, hand in Stiles’ hair to gently caress and stroke, and every time he swallows his Adam’s apple bobs almost aggressively. Stiles keeps his eyes on Derek’s face as he sucks the whole thing down, watches as his lips part and open in pleasure, and feels satisfaction. There’s something incredibly satisfying about sucking Derek off, and Stiles can never quite put his finger on it. If Stiles is sucking him off, then Stiles isn’t getting touched, not at all, at least not until later or after, but all the same, it’s one of his favorite things to do even without the bonus of him getting to come.

It must be because on any other given day, Derek pays so much attention to Stiles. He edges him and eats him out and over-stimulates him and uses all kinds of toys on him, because the main focus of so much of their sexual endeavors is Derek liking to play with him. He likes screwing with Stiles’ body, he likes messing with him and winding him up like a little toy. He likes choosing when Stiles comes. He likes all that weirdo shit.

But when Stiles is on his knees for Derek, it’s all about him, for once. Stiles likes to do it because he knows Derek deserves it, for all he does for Stiles, day in, day out.

He pulls off and looks up at Derek’s face some more, using his hands to gently stroke as he speaks. “Can I ask you something?”

“While your hands are on my cock?” He asks, a bit breathless. “Absolutely. What do you want?”

Stiles rubs his thumb along the slit and bites his lip, listening to Derek make a soft noise in the back of his throat. “Do you remember when you gagged me that first time,” he sucks on the head for just a second, so Derek nearly bucks his hips up into it in desperation before Stiles pulls off, “and you said that because I did that, you would do something I want to do?’

“Of course.”

“Well…” he trails off, palming Derek’s balls as he runs his tongue along the underside vein that makes Derek honest-to-God jump with a gentle ah sound. “I thought of what I wanted.”

“Let’s hear it,” he commands, grabbing onto Stiles’ hair and angling his mouth back towards his cock. Stiles goes, and for another fifteen or so seconds he sucks and sucks, bobbing up and down, before pulling off again and kissing Derek on the stomach.

“I want you to fuck me on your money.”

Derek looks down at him, eyes dark and hooded and lips parted and shiny. He says, “come again?”

“I said,” he presses the tip of his tongue against Derek’s shaft, meeting Derek’s eyes the entire time he runs it all the way up to the head, “…I want you to fuck me on top of your money. I want you to lay money out on your bed, and fuck me on it.”

Derek smiles. It’s this lazy, turned on fucking smile that goes straight to Stiles’ neglected cock, tucked away in his pants and underwear. “Do you have a money fetish?”

“I’m your sugar baby,” he reminds Derek with a twist of his hand where it’s gripping his cock. “Yeah, I like money and sex. Separately is fine. But together? Come on.”

“Then, fine,” he agrees with a wave of his hand, like it’s practically already done. “It can be arranged, you kinkster.”

“Oh, now I’m the kinkster?” He teases, a smirk in his voice.

He takes Stiles by the hair and drags his face back to his waiting cock, where Stiles obediently takes it back into his mouth without having to be asked. Derek sighs in contentment and sits back, relaxing entirely into Stiles’ mouth. He doesn’t try to thrust or chase his pleasure or anything – he just sits there and lets Stiles do everything for him. Which Stiles is more than happy to do for him.

Not too long after, there’s a buzzing noise that Stiles recognizes as a phone vibrating, and he ignores it. If it’s him, he doesn’t care and doesn’t have the means to answer it anyway. But it’s not him. It’s Derek. Stiles looks up as he keeps working his mouth, watching as Derek pulls his phone out of his pocket and observes the screen to see who’s calling. His lips quirk a bit in what Stiles would call distaste or annoyance, that Stiles can see from the illumination the dim lighting of the phone offers, and then he presses the phone to his ear and meets Stiles’ curious eyes.

“Yeah?” He says, licking his lips and watching Stiles slowly pull off his cock. Stiles mouths should I stop?, and Derek shakes his head and pulls Stiles down by his hair again, angling his mouth back onto his cock effortlessly. “I’m busy, no. I’m with my boy right now.”

Derek leans his head back into the seat and keeps his hand in Stiles’ hair, keeping his head in just the right place to keep sucking with no place else for his mouth to go. It doesn’t necessarily bother Stiles at all that Derek is going to talk on the phone while he’s giving him head. As a matter of fact, it sort of turns him on even more, just thinking about the fact that whoever is on the other end of that phone, Boyd or Lydia or Erica or whoever the hell, has no fucking idea.

“I don’t know. I don’t have time right now, I’m busy. For fuck’s sake.”

Stiles looks up again through his lashes, finds Derek staring right at him again. It’s a wonder, it really is, that Derek can carry on a conversation with someone where he sounds so god damn annoyed and put out about it, while simultaneously enjoying watching his cock going in and out of Stiles’ mouth. The man must be one fucking hell of a compartmentalizer.

“I’m with Stiles, holy shit. I can’t…” he trails off, getting this look on his face like he’s going to fucking freak out, and then pinches the bridge of his nose. Once he’s done doing that, he uses those same fingers to grip into Stiles’ hair and pull him off his cock a bit – not all the way. But Stiles is left tonguing at the slit and the head, kissing at it a bit while Derek watches and looks annoyed. “How much is that? In cash.”

There’s an answer, and Derek’s eyebrows go up. “For that much I can make time. Yeah.” A pause, where Derek’s eyes meet Stiles’ and flash, just a bit. “No he’s not coming with me, holy shit. Just – fuck off. I’ll be there when I’m there, just wait for me and learn how to handle things your god damn self.” He hangs up with those final parting words, and looks remarkably less annoyed as soon as the voice is out of his ear.

He shifts a bit, taking Stiles by his hair again and then grabbing his head with both hands to keep it still for him to do with what he wants. With a deep grunting noise, he pushes his hips forward and fucks Stiles’ mouth in deft, shallow thrusts, while Stiles sits there and puts his hands in his lap. He watches Derek grit his teeth and chase after his pleasure, his hair going all disheveled as he moves, his eyes intense and set, and finally – he comes. Right down Stiles’ throat.

He goes all jerky and stuttery with a quiet moan, manically stroking Stiles’ hair and face as if it’s payment for a job well done. Stiles swallows his come and pulls his head back, so Derek’s cock flops out of his mouth and back down against his wide open pants. Derek leans back, but he gently presses Stiles’ cheek into his inner thigh, laying Stiles down on his body as his cock softens and his breath returns to normal.

He says, “I just made a quarter million,” in this fucked-out, satisfied voice, and Stiles swallows, tasting Derek on his tongue.

It’s easy to forget, sometimes and especially during more intimate moments, that Derek is who he is. Other times, Stiles remembers, and he can’t ever decide if he wants the details or if he’d rather just stay in the dark like Derek wants him to. Like Derek says is good and best for him. He wants to know what Derek could’ve possibly had a single phone call about that leads to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but then, maybe he really doesn’t.

“You should suck me off every time I get calls about done deals,” he murmurs, petting Stiles’ hair. “God, I love your mouth. I love you.”

Stiles wants to ask how much he loves money, wiping his hand across his mouth. More?

Sometimes Stiles thinks it’s more.


	9. Birthday sex.

Stiles cards his way into Derek’s penthouse at eleven o’clock on the Wednesday before his birthday weekend. On Friday they’ll be getting on Derek’s jet and flying off to New York City to stay in the Financial District, where Derek has a hotel room and reservations for dinner and a whole slew of places and sights to go see. The weird thing about Derek is that he does seem like the kind of person who mostly just shrugs his way through life and goes with the flow more than anything else; but in reality, he is very calculated and organized. He also seems to be a very big fan of planning, almost neurotically.

The point is, he and Derek weren’t meant to be seeing each other until Friday morning for take-off. Stiles had honestly thought that Derek wouldn’t be home when he swung the door open, but the lights are on in the living room and there are a couple of tell-tale signs of life lying about – a pair of Derek’s shoes haphazardly dumped off by the couch, a couple of stools at the island pushed out like they were recently being sat in, and, most notably, the sliding glass doors leading off onto the terrace pushed wide open.

The wind blows in crisp autumn air, and Stiles is surprised. He stalks closer to the doors and once he’s within what he thinks is hearing distance, he calls, “Derek?”

There’s a brief pause, as Stiles is still approaching, but then – “yeah.” It’s muted by the distance between them and the glass separating them, but Stiles hears it, and he blinks. Most week nights around this time Derek is indisposed, or at least he’s not just sitting at home.

It’s even more bizarre when Stiles peeks out onto the balcony and finds Derek sitting there with a tumbler of what looks like straight whisky in his hand, smoking a cigarette, frowning out at the skyline. There’s a bottle next to him on the little side table, half empty, and an ashtray with seven other cigarette butts stamped out. “You’re drinking?” He asks, surprised at many things, but that especially. Derek drinks, yes, but this…does not look like normal fun-time drinking. “Are you…drunk?”

Derek squints out at the city lights, and nods, once. “A bit.”

Derek is sitting alone on his terrace getting drunk, chainsmoking, and he’s all fucking by himself. Stiles’ lips purse together as he steps out onto the balcony entirely, closing the glass door behind him so the cold air stops filtering into his house. This is fucking weird, dude, a weird thing to see. Like, almost Twilight Zoney.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks, padding across the bricks underfoot until he comes to the chair right next to Derek’s. He sits, staring at the side of Derek’s face as he does so.

Derek sips his drink and swallows, the ice clinking around in his glass. He stares more out at the night sky and makes a vague shrugging gesture, like he can’t afford much more physical or mental energy on anything else. “What are you doing here?” He evades, and Stiles frowns and plays with a loose thread on his t-shirt.

“I came by to pick up some of those nice clothes you got me last time we went shopping,” his voice is a bit careful, unsure and nervous. He doesn’t know how to read this situation. He has, frankly, never seen Derek like this.

Hell, the man is disheveled on top of being drunk alone on a rooftop, for all intents and purposes. His tie is all undone and lopsided and his buttons are only half buttoned, his hair a mess like he’s been running his hand through it again and again.

“I have my first day tomorrow. At the Chronicle.”

“Right,” Derek blinks like he had honestly forgotten about that, staring down into his glass and shaking it so the ice rattles. Stiles frowns even more deeply; it’s unlike Derek to just forget about something like that. “What do you need to go in for? Isn’t it, just, an online thing?”

Stiles runs his finger over his mouth and sighs. He has explained all of this to Derek before and he knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that Derek knows it and listened to him when he was speaking. Now, it seems, Derek has forgotten that the Chronicle even fucking exists. “There’s an office. Hey, seriously,” he pushes again, reaching out to put his hand on Derek’s arm. “What’s wrong?”

Derek’s mouth quirks downward, and he finishes off his glass in one fell swoop. As he’s placing the glass down with a clink and opening up the bottle, he says, “I had a very bad day.”

Stiles watches as Derek pours himself another stiff one, eyes shrewd. He thinks he should tell Derek that maybe he’s had enough, but he doesn’t know what Derek’s reaction to that would be and he doesn’t even know if Derek would listen to him.

“Sometimes I think nothing can ever really…get to me.” He sips, doesn’t meet Stiles’ eyes. “I’ve seen so much and been through enough that I like to think I’ve developed a thick skin.”

After having his entire family burn to death on the same night at the hands of the crazy girlfriend he thought he was in love with? Yeah, Stiles can understand how a person might grow hardened by an experience like that.

“The truth is, some things.” He runs his finger along the lip of his glass and lowers his neck, shaking his head. “Some things. I’m not God.”

Stiles blinks at him, and he doesn’t know what to say.

“Some things get to me. I try to be like Erica, but I’m just not.”

“What are we talking about?” He asks, voice still that soft and gentle murmur from before. He runs his fingers up and down Derek’s arm, through the silky fabric of his nice shirt, and he tries to catch Derek’s eyes, to no avail. “What happened?”

“Something went wrong,” he gestures vaguely, off into the nothing and the black and the lights of the night. “We got caught up and words were exchanged and then threats and one thing lead to another,” it’s the most vague, ambiguous telling of a story Stiles has ever heard, but he doesn’t ask for more information. Derek will not give it to him, because as he’s said only ten thousand times, the less Stiles knows, the better. Stiles can only agree. “…and there was this kid. Maybe sixteen. He was one of those street kids. Selling for somebody else, the people we were in a disagreement with. And Erica shot him.”

Stiles breathes out through his mouth. A long, shallow breath that sounds loud in his ears and he imagines sounds mammoth in Derek’s. There is nothing, nothing in the world that he can think to say, and so he just squeezes Derek’s shoulder and nods like he understands. He doesn’t.

“It was an accident, she never would have done that on purpose,” though Stiles can tell just from his tone that this is something he is rationalizing to himself, and not something he necessarily believes with his whole heart. “It was just an accident. But he – you know, those kids, they just wind up like that. They don’t know any better and they have no family, no one, nothing. He was just a kid.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees in a rasp. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Derek scoffs, shaking his head. “You are naïve and innocent.”

Innocent, Stiles thinks, cocking his head to the side. A lot of words Stiles might use to describe himself, but innocent doesn’t even fucking make the list. That being said, he knows what Derek means. After all, in a side by side comparison of himself and Derek, Stiles likely seems like the fucking Virgin Mary.

Figuring that while Derek is drunk and upset like this, there would be no way to talk him down or convince him that his self-loathing and apparent wallowing is unfounded, Stiles changes trajectories. “What does Erica think of this?”

Derek closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, they seem faraway. “She doesn’t care.”

“That cannot be true,” he argues, and Derek turns to look at him, all the way and full in the face, for the first time since this entire conversation started. His eyes have this distance to them, like he’s only half in this conversation, and half back in that room or basement or wherever it happened, replaying it again and again in his head.

“Baby. I know her. You are so generous to think she’s anything but ruthless.” He takes another long, long sip, and Stiles sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “That’s why she’s my second.”

She does what I can’t. Stiles knows what Derek had meant by that, now.

He reaches out and takes the glass from Derek’s hand, setting it down harshly on the small table as a pointed gesture of you’re done. Once Derek’s hand is free and empty, Stiles grabs it with his own and wraps their fingers together, holding on tight and leaning in close to him, as close as their positions allow. “You can talk to me about anything, you know that right? You don’t have to use specifics, but you can talk to me. I’ll listen. I know Erica and Lydia and Boyd won’t and there’s…no one else,” he clears his throat, heartbroken at Derek’s silence – he doesn’t argue that point, not at all. From what he knows of Derek’s sisters…well. He knows nothing about them. Which says enough. “…but I’m your best friend. I know I’m also your boyfriend and your weird kink buddy and whatever, but I love you. I’ll listen, you know?”

Derek meets his eyes, but he stays quiet. He seems struck silent.

“And I know you,” he reaches out, touches Derek on his face with the palm of his hand, gentle and soft. “I know you never meant for that to happen.”

“In my world, it just does,” he counters, and Stiles has to concede to that point. Derek comes from unforgiving roots. He should learn to be just as unforgiving, himself, but apparently he struggles still. “I’m drunk. And very miserable.”

Stiles squeezes Derek’s hand again, harder. “I’m here, and I’ll stay,” he says, and Derek’s shoulders sag, just a bit, almost in relief. “I’ll stay the night, okay? I’m – I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to…”

“Not your burden,” he interrupts before Stiles can get any more steam on that sentence. “This is my life and my problems and my fucking issues.”

“I’ll stay here with you,” he promises, bringing Derek’s hand up to kiss the back of it. “No more drinking. We can just go to bed and go to sleep.”

Derek nods, slowly, and he really does look exhausted. Dark circles under his eyes, this haunted, faraway look to him, and yeah, he’s drunk. It’s the sad, pathetic kind of drunk, though. It makes Stiles upset to see him like this. It’s not the Derek he knows, because the Derek he knows is strong and hard and doesn’t ever falter or let anything get underneath his skin.

But Derek is not two people. He is one person, and he thinks and he feels and he’s just…he’s just Derek.

“If anything ever happened to you,” he randomly starts in with, reaching out to paw his own hands against Stiles’ chest and neck, “I don’t know what I would do. If anyone ever touched you –“

“Why are you even saying that?” He demands, furrowing his brow. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m fine. Jesus. Let’s get you some water –“

“If anyone ever fucking came near you I wouldn’t hesitate to –“

“Derek,” he hisses, taking Derek’s hands off of his own body and pushing them back, squeezing his wrists. “Shh. You’re drunk. You’re not thinking clearly. Let’s go to bed.”

Even as they’re standing up and Stiles is sort of supporting Derek’s weight against his own, Derek keeps going. “I just love you so much,” he says, and Stiles nods along. This has gone from very, very sad, to shocking, back to sad, and then straight down to mildly disturbing. “I just fucking love you so fucking much –“

“Okay, yes. I love you like that right back,” Stiles agrees, hobbling with Derek’s weight into the living room and closing the door behind them. They move through the half-lit apartment, Stiles moving as fast as he can toward the bedroom because he really wants this night and this alien-Derek to be over and done with. It scares him, to see Derek like this.

“I can’t care about something this much,” he mutters, and Stiles smacks his hip into the entryway of the bedroom, cursing under his breath. “I shouldn’t care about anything. Better that way.”

“Mmmhm,” Stiles says, dumping Derek onto the bed as soon as he’s close enough. Derek just sort of lies there staring at the ceiling, and then palms his forehead and groans, shaking his head. He’s had way too much to drink.

Derek pulls his phone out of his pocket and breathes in deeply as he swipes at it to scare the lock screen. There are notifications there and he blearily tries to read them, before giving up and letting his phone drop down onto the bed with a plop. “Lie down with me,” he says, reaching out towards Stiles’ general direction. “Please, baby, come here, let me touch you.”

“I’m not having sex with you when you’re like this.”

Like this is the funniest thing Stiles has ever said, Derek laughs. He laughs, and he laughs, all while Stiles knees his way onto the bed with an incredulous smirk on his face. He cannot keep up with Derek’s whiplash of emotions, right now. He just can’t. “No, just –“ he pulls Stiles down with him, so they’re lying on their sides, face to face, easy enough for Derek to push his palm against Stiles’ beating heart. “Like this.”

Stiles stares back at him and sighs. “Let’s go to sleep.,” he suggests, and Derek’s eyes immediately start to drift closed at the word itself. “Okay? Love you.”

He watches like a hawk as Derek’s eyes close all the way, and then he goes still, with his hand still over Stiles’ heart. He watches, watches, and it’s not five minutes later that Derek is snoring and completely still, hands going limp against Stiles’ body. With a twist to his mouth, Stiles stares at him and tries to make sense of everything that just happened – tries to decide how he feels about it, if he’s being honest.

It’s not the most shocking thing in the world that a sixteen year old kid got shot trying to sell drugs. It likely happens all the time – but then Stiles starts to wonder if just because something happens all the time, does that make it okay? And no, no it doesn’t. It’s not okay that Derek is involved with a thing that causes things like that to happen; but it wasn’t his fault.

Stiles believes this, with all his heart. It wasn’t Derek’s fault. He doesn’t shoot children. He would never do that. The sheer fact that he has guilt about it, drinking himself half-crazy all alone in his cavernous idiotic apartment, is proof enough that he’s not…hard enough to do the job he thinks is the only thing he can do.

He is convinced that Derek is a good person. He knows that he is. No matter what anyone else thinks.

Stiles flips over onto his back and stares at the ceiling, blinking and feeling very small and a bit shaky. Derek’s phone buzzes with another text notification, and he peers over at it mostly out of habit to see what it says. He doesn’t think about how he really shouldn’t be looking at Derek’s personal information, but he really can’t help himself. It doesn’t count as lurking through his boyfriend’s phone if it’s just the notification, after all.

Lydia : I would be worried.  
Lydia : She doesn’t tend to mess around.  
Lydia : You should know that better than anyone.

Stiles scratches at his cheek and wonders if that’s about Erica. After all, Derek has on occasion mentioned that she’s a looney toon who could potentially be a little out of control – like, ten minutes ago included. Plus, Stiles has spoken to her himself. He thinks he can attest to the fact that she’s just the slightest bit off her rocker.

Then again, Derek has also alluded to the fact that Erica being a looney toon is somewhat of an asset. After all, Derek can’t be like her as he’s said time and time again – but in his business and in what he does, someone really has to be.

Stiles runs his fingers through Derek’s hair a few times, and then sighs deeply through his nose and gets out of the bed to pick around in his fancy clothes like he had originally intended.

***

Me, 8:56 AM : Hey!  
Me, 8:56 AM : You, drunk, ranting and raving about mysterious people wanting to “put their hands on me” as you put it – I didn’t love it!  
Daddy, 8:59 AM : I’m sorry. I do not usually drink that much.  
Me, 9:01 AM : I know, you lightweight bitch  
Daddy, 9:03 AM : Let’s just say I really need this vacation with you. Work is getting intolerable on both sides.  
Daddy, 9:04 AM : I didn’t mean to upset you – I remember you seeming put off.  
Me, 9:06 AM : You are BANNED from alcohol in NYC!  
Daddy, 9:08 AM : Uh…no? Nice try though.  
Me, 9:09 AM : Lmao, for real though, I can’t wait. Satchmo is excited too  
Daddy, 9:10 AM : I’d just like to point out, for the tenth time and to deaf ears, that bringing a fish along on a plane ride seems ludicrous for multiple reasons.  
Me, 9:12 AM : He can’t be alone. Scott would forget to feed him and I’d come back to him being dead and I sincerely doubt you want to deal with me in the wake of that.  
Daddy, 9:14 AM : That is a fair point.  
Me, 9:15 AM : He’s the symbol of our love. If he dies…well.  
Daddy, 9:17 AM : All right. Satchmo can come.  
Me, 9:18 AM : You say that as though your opinion on the matter was being noted  
Daddy, 9:20 AM : I really, really need to start spanking you for your fucking smart mouth.  
Me, 9:21 AM : (:  
***

Stiles has never been on a private jet before. He’s seen pictures and movies, yes, but actually climbing up the stupid ladder and stepping inside one is a lot different than just seeing it on television. Derek’s is nice as shit, too, with white and tan interior and leather seats and nice big windows to peer out of.  
Stiles bee lines it for the best looking chair and plops himself down, setting Satchmo’s bowl on the table in front of him. Then he makes quick work of putting bricks he had asked Derek to get on either side of Satchmo so he won’t go sliding off into the carpeting where he’ll have to do the dry-fish until the bowl could get refilled. “This is ritzy,” he says to Derek with a wink, swiveling around in his chair.

Derek comes up and sits down in the spot right next to him, as if he doesn’t care which seat is actually the best one or better or anything so long as it’s the one closest to Stiles. “It’s a six hour flight.”

“Oh, piss.”

“But, no layover, and we’re leaving early enough that we’ll make it for dinner in the city.”

Stiles leans back in his seat and gets comfortable, shifting around until he’s in a good position. “Hey, are we gonna watch a movie?”

“If you want.”

“Is there popcorn?”

“No. There’s some bags of chips, I think.”

Stiles watches as the plane door gets shut by one of the two pilots, slammed and locked up tight, and then he gives some signal to Derek that must mean they’re about to take off. Stiles bites his lip and stares out the window at the tarmac, where the other planes all sit and the little luggage cars drive around aimlessly. He watches for a while, looking over his shoulder to find Derek poking around on his phone, and then he feels guilty for looking at his texts last night, even if just a little bit.

He thinks he should come clean and see what Derek’s reaction would be. He doesn’t think that’s the kind of thing Derek would “punish” him for, but it is something that he wouldn’t appreciate and would potentially get chewed out for. He just can’t help it sometimes. Derek is so mysterious, and he should know better than anyone how hard it is for Stiles to handle mysteries.

The plane starts moving and Derek doesn’t even react, but Stiles’ shoulders tense up and he peers out the window some more. He glares as they move along the runway, waiting their turn in line, and then goes still when they make the turn that puts them next in line.

He bites his fingers and leans back in his seat, jiggling his leg up and down. Satchmo is swimming a bit manically, likely wondering what the hell is going on here, and Stiles focuses on that as intensely as he can. The plane starts making that loud whiiirrrrr noise and Stiles flinches, curling in on himself a bit and breathing in and out deeply through his nose.

Abruptly, Derek’s hand is on his lower back. Stiles jumps, startled, and Derek’s reaction to this is an incredulous and slow smile, cocking his head to the side as the plane starts going faster. “Are you afraid of flying?” He asks, like it’s funny.

“No,” Stiles immediately spits back, embarrassed. Then, he clears his throat. “I don’t like taking off or landing, is all.”

“C’mere,” Derek says as soon as the words are out of Stiles’ mouth, dragging Stiles over to his chair to be propped up on top of his lap. The plane starts going, and going, so fast that the entire thing rattles, and Stiles forgoes all embarrassment and any sense of pride and clutches into Derek’s shirt with both hands, wide-eyed. “Oh, man. Poor baby.”

“I’m not scared,” he says, even as he full body winces when the plane picks up enough speed to start actually flying. The sound of the wheels retracting has him curling closer to Derek, as if it were physically possible.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were nervous about flying?”

“Because I’m not,” he says, because he god damn isn’t. “The being in the air part I like. The start and the end, I just – I hate it. Too many noises. Babies crying.”

“There are no babies here, excluding yourself,” he pokes Stiles in the stomach, which makes him laugh like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. “I could’ve helped you to calm down, you know.”

They’re still climbing, but Stiles feels marginally better now that the worst is over with. He releases his chokehold on Derek’s shirt just slightly, sighing through his nose in relief and sagging a bit. “You can on the landing. Anyway, enough negative talk. We are going to New York.”

“Yes,” Derek agrees, rubbing his hand in soothing circles on Stiles’ back.

He puts on his best affected New York accent, probably closest to the Bronx, and says, “you think the Yanks are going to the world series this year?”

Playing along, Derek says, “I don’t know. Tampa Bay is doing pretty well –“

“Tampa Bay can rot in hell.”

Derek leans in and kisses him on the cheek with this doofy smile on his face, like thinks Stiles is so cute and funny. “Spoken like a true New Yorker.”

Stiles moves to climb off Derek’s lap and get back into his own seat, but Derek holds onto his hips and stops him, raising his eyebrows. “Nah, stay here.”

With a huff, Stiles leans back into Derek’s chest and rolls his eyes. “Power trip.”

“I like how your frail, bony body feels against my much larger, much stronger one.”

“You’re not that much stronger than me,” he says, squirming in Derek’s lap.

“You want to bet? What do you bench press?”

Stiles blinks, opening and closing his mouth. “Information not available,” he admits – he’s fairly certain he’s never bench pressed a single thing. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t have muscle.”

“The point is, you are so thin and fit perfectly right here,” he hugs Stiles closer against his body with both arms, resting his chin on Stiles’ shoulder and pressing a kiss to his neck. “I want to hold you down and fuck you stupid.”

“We are not joining the mile high club. It’s too – bleh.”

“That’s okay. The hotel will be very nice,” he kisses Stiles’ neck again, sucking on it for just a moment before pulling off. “I really needed this. Just you, me, far away from all that bullshit. I get so tired sometimes, I think I could just drop dead.”

Stiles nods his head, like he understands. Derek’s days seem to be filled with nothing but the same old monotony, and when they’re not boring, they’re terrible and things happen that keep him up at night. Stiles wonders, sometimes, why he doesn’t just quit – but then he doesn’t have to wonder. It’s money. “I can tell that, sometimes. Let’s not even talk about it,” he insists, reaching up to comb his hand through Derek’s hair. “We are on vacation. Real world : off.”

“Oh, and,” Derek bites Stiles’ neck, just a little, so Stiles jumps at first and then leans into it, tilting his head to allow him better access. “Don’t think I forgot your birthday is tomorrow. The hotel isn’t the only present.”

Gleefully, Stiles starts chanting, “Birthday sex, birthday sex, birthday sex,” until Derek laughs and slaps a hand over his mouth, silencing him effectively.

“Yes, that, and other things as well. You’re my good boy,” he strokes his fingers along Stiles’ cheek, a soft smile on his face, looking at him like Stiles is the only thing on the face of the planet that he needs to be concerned about right now.

And being that loved and appreciated and wanted makes Stiles feel all fuzzy inside – especially considering he feels the exact same way for Derek himself.

***

The hotel is incredibly, incredibly nice, but that’s not surprising. The sheer amount of expensive over the top hotels to be found in Manhattan would probably be enough to fill the entirety of Beacon Hills, and to top it off, of course Derek wasn’t going to pick second best. This is likely the best hotel in the entire city, if not the state of New York altogether.  
The bed is ironically a California King, the windows are huge and offer off-the-wall views of the city from one of the very top floors, and there’s a fucking Jacuzzi in the bathroom. Stiles happens upon it when he stops in for a piss and nearly wets his pants at the sight. Since he and Derek are both men and could give a shit, they both took up pissing with the door open in their presence long ago – so he calls out the wide open door, unzipping his fly. “There’s a god damn Jacuzzi in here!”

“Yeah,” Derek’s voice is muffled and distant, coupled by the sound of him rifling around in his bags for something or other.

“We have to use it!”

“Yeah,” again, and then Stiles is washing his hands and Derek is poking his head in, examining the thing for himself. He looks at it, and sort of frowns. Like he thinks it leaves something to be desired. Stiles doesn’t even want to begin to ask what his issue is, so he just dries his hands off on the very, very nice hand towel provided and looks at himself in the mirror for a moment, poking around in his hair. “I’m fucking starving. I could eat my hand.”

Stiles meets his eyes in the mirror with a smile. “Did you make a reservation? I saw that 24-hour terrible looking deli down the street, and it wouldn’t be a trip to New York if we didn’t go.”

“I knew you would say that, so no, I didn’t make a reservation for tonight,” he smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners – and sometimes, it’s honestly freaky how well Derek knows Stiles. He likely saw that deli in the suggested nearby restaurants after booking the hotel and knew Stiles would see it and want nothing more than to go there.

“Let’s go,” he flicks off the bathroom light and ushers Derek out into the main room, where their bags are all over the place and Satchmo is swimming alone by the bed.

They walk down the hall and take the elevator back down to the lobby floor, with its huge ceilings and tiled floors and many echoes, and then they’re out in the crisp air. It gets cold in Beacon Hills, but not like out here – the air is heavy with its cold, biting and severe, but Stiles sort of likes it.

The deli is just as bad as Stiles thought it would be. The guy manning the counter looks angry the second he and Derek walk in, likely because he’s working at a twenty-four hour deli in the tourist capital of the world, and there’s a long buffet line filled with food that Stiles can only assume has been sitting there since nine o’clock this morning. They get takeout containers and load themselves up, and Stiles is honestly amazed Derek has zero commentary to make on the entire thing.

The man could be in a five star restaurant eating a sirloin steak right now, and instead he’s here with Stiles, scooping pasta out of a serving tray, happily at that.

They get a six pack of cidre from the fridge, and the man at the counter seems to card them both just to make a scene about it. He eyeballs Derek in particular, from top to bottom – the crisp black shirt, the perfectly fitted jeans, the glowing skin of a man who moisturizes – and seems to make the decision that he doesn’t like him at all whatsoever. He barks their total in a heavy Staten Island drawl, is given Derek’s credit card without a word, and next thing, they’re back out in the cold air, moving down the block to their hotel.

They park themselves on the huge bed with their food and plastic silverware, cracking open the cidres, facing the window with the blinds wide open. Stiles can see the freedom tower, and it looks almost close enough that he could reach out and touch it.

“This is…” Stiles starts, poking around in his food, “…bizarrely good.”

“I was just thinking that,” Derek agrees, smiling around a mouthful of food. “For buffet food from tray warmers, this is absurdly decent.”

“The lasagna is killing me,” he leans over to see if Derek got some, and he did, so he points to it with his fork aggressively. “Try it, dude. It’s fucking good as shit.”

Derek does as he’s asked, slicing into it and raising his eyebrows as he chews. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “I forgot how good New York can be.”

Stiles looks out the window and rests his chin in his palm, fork dangling loosely from his fingers as he gazes out at all the city lights and the distant twinkling of the bridges connecting the city from borough to borough. He always dreamed about coming here when he was a kid and his mom used to talk about it, and then he didn’t like to think about it too much after his mom passed. It took him a while to think of New York as a dream place anymore after that, but he’s here now, and he’s so happy his heart could literally explode. It feels like fantasy, to see the lights and the city and the traffic, but it’s not. It’s reality. There were those short lived dreams of being a writer for the New York Times, but Stiles isn’t so naïve anymore. Still, he feels like a little kid watching his dreams come true.

And Derek did this for him. “Let’s go to SoHo tomorrow,” he suggests, and Derek nods his head instantly.

“Anything you want.”

***

Stiles wakes up in the morning on a gasp, disoriented for a moment as he blinks his eyes open and sees an unfamiliar ceiling. He remembers where he is after just one second, and then a few other particularly enticing details fall into place the longer he sits there, a quiet, surprised whimper bubbling from the back of his throat.  
There’s a hot, wet mouth on his cock, and his legs fall open wider on instinct, chasing the pleasure. He hefts himself up on his elbows to look down, and finds Derek down in between his legs, his head bobbing up and down as his fingers grip the base of Stiles’ dick, one finger gently stroking at his balls. Stiles tilts his head back as his mouth drops open, panting and moaning half in surprise and half in genuine, unbridled enjoyment.

Derek has never sucked him off before. He’s put his mouth and tongue on Stiles’ dick, yes, but always as a part of edging or just to tease him or just to be a fucking asshole, for the most part. He has never, not once, sucked Stiles off to completion. And to boot, Stiles hasn’t had an orgasm that wasn’t paired with long, long stints of teasing and denial in a very, very long time.

Stiles almost forgot what it’s like to just…come. Whenever he wants to. He reaches down and grabs at Derek’s hair with both hands, hitching his legs up and sighing quietly as his orgasm gets closer and closer. He tugs on the short black hair and moves his hips just slightly up to meet Derek’s mouth, laying his head back on the pillow and biting his lip. “That feels good,” he murmurs, needlessly – because of course it does. It’s a mouth on his dick, and it should go without saying. “Daddy, oh my God…”

Derek hmm’s, and the vibration of the sound on his dick brings him right to the edge. He grips harder on Derek’s hair, nearly tugging it out he’s pretty sure, body locking up.

“I’m gonna come,” he warns, and Derek doesn’t try to stop him. He moves up and down a bit faster, actually, and Stiles makes a high pitched, surprised noise. “I’m coming, I’m coming – ah –“ he does. And Derek swallows his come as it spills out of him, bit by bit, until Stiles is completely spent and the orgasm is finished.

Last time he successfully came was sometime before the ruined orgasm. So, before he and Derek got into that fight and before they said they needed time – so it’s been, give or take, three weeks since his last honest-to-God orgasm. He doesn’t know why he kept up with the rule of him not being able to jerk himself off even when he and Derek were fighting; truthfully, he guesses, jerking off just doesn’t have the same appeal to it anymore.

He sits there blinking at the ceiling for a moment, mindlessly stroking at Derek’s hair as the other man wipes his mouth off and then presses a wet kiss to Stiles’ stomach where his t-shirt had gotten rucked up.

“Happy birthday, baby,” he says, licking a stripe across his skin with a lascivious grin on his face.

“Happy fucking birthday is right,” he murmurs, a little strung out. “That was a treat, holy shit.”

“Yeah?” Derek pulls himself up, pushing Stiles’ legs closed. He smiles again, a bit wider, reaching down over the bed to rifle around in the bag that Stiles knows is parked down there. As Derek is doing that, he rubs at his sleepy eyes and sits up himself, looking around. The trash is full of their empty takeout containers and their empty bottles, Stiles’ underwear is down at the end of the bed from when Derek had likely taken it off in his sleep to more easily get at his morning wood, and the city is bright in the window.

Abruptly, Derek is dropping a little box on top of Stiles’ chest and gesturing to it, raising his eyebrows. “Happy birthday,” he says again, and Stiles picks the package up with a huge smile on his face.

It’s not the usual black box with red ribbon. Derek had wrapped the box is hokey paper with tiny little blue fish all over it, smiling with party hats on. Stiles laughs as he holds it in his hands, his body shaking with it. “Oh, my God. Where did you get this?”

Derek shrugs. “Party City.”

Dear God, the thought of Derek standing in Party fucking City hunting for wrapping paper…sifting though Hello Kitty and Justin Bieber just to find these god damn cartoon fish. Stiles laughs and laughs, leaning in to peck Derek on the lips and then laugh some more.

“Open it,” Derek says, a big smile on his face.

Stiles peels the paper off, tossing it all aside and revealing a small white box. Stiles looks at the box for a moment, lips curling up a bit, because he thinks he has a pretty good guess at what’s inside. He meets Derek’s eyes, who just gestures again for him to open his present, and smiles.

He plucks the top off and both is and isn’t surprised at all by what he sees. It’s a choker, not unlike the one he has on right now. It’s red velvet again, same thickness and style, but this one has a charm on it, dangling off and glittering in the dim lighting.

It’s a tiny little sterling silver fish with a diamond in its eye and a tail that swishes whenever the charm itself moves. It’s adorable. Stiles picks it up with his fingers and laughs in genuine glee, poking at the little fish with his index finger.

“You needed a new one,” Derek says, shrugging, like it’s no big deal, not at all.

“Thank you,” Stiles says, face all lit up. “It’s – thank you. I love it.” He reaches up and makes quick work of removing the old one, taking the new one out of the box and setting the old one in its place, and hands the fish choker to Derek to put on for him.

Derek does instantly, pulling the choker tight against Stiles’ neck and fiddling with the clasp just like he always does. “That’s the first one,” Derek says in a low voice. “I got you several.”

“More presents?” Stiles asks, voice light and happy. “You’re so stupid.”

Derek gets the choker on and Stiles plays with the charm resting right in center of his collarbones. But Derek leans in and bites the shell of his ear, so Stiles shivers and smiles down at the pillows.

“Now I have to think of something really good for your birthday,” he remarks, tapping his chin in thought. “How about six coupons for free cuddles?”

“Perfect.”

***

Stiles slides a pair of sunglasses onto his face and looks at himself in the mirror, while Derek comes up behind him and looks right at Stiles’ reflection. Stiles says, “I’m the coolest person you’ve ever seen, right?”  
“Absolutely.”

He adjusts his glasses a few times, gently pokes at the gel in his hair to get it all right where he wants it, and then appraises himself in all his entirety. He looks cool as shit, in his personal opinion – all black, sunglasses on, choker around his neck, and some really nice fucking shoes Derek had given him earlier on his feet. He looks like he’s rich himself, when in all reality, he can barely make rent every month.

It is, however, nice to look the part.

He turns to Derek and grins, adjusting the collar on his shirt. “Rooftop bar, rooftop bar, rooftop bar,” he chants, and Derek cocks his head to the side and smiles all wide and genuine.

“Just remember we have reservations at seven. And it’ll be cold up there.”

“Stop trying to make the rooftop bar experience less cool. This isn’t any ordinary rooftop,” he looks out the window, squinting against the sun even in his glasses. “This is a rooftop in uptown. We’ll be like kings of the universe.”

“You say that as if I’m not already that even without a rooftop.”

Stiles gives him a dirty look, rolling his eyes and jetting off toward the door to their hotel room. They ride the elevator up to the roof and spill out underneath some string lights, lit even in the fading sunlight, met with tall heating lamps that warm Stiles’ skin underneath the light fabric of his clothes. It’s beautiful up here – nothing but lights and skyline and the city stretched out all around them, seeming endless and forever. He can see the bay, Lady Liberty a speck on the horizon, and they pick a couch right up against the plexi glass to get a better look at all of it.

They order martinis, and Derek looks fucking ridiculous holding his. Like, to the point where Stiles nearly cry laughs and demands pictures. He snaps a couple, wiping tears out of his eyes, but when he looks at them there on his screen, he has to admit – the man can’t really look anything but badass. In his expensive clothing and sunglasses and that set to his face like he’s just so fucking annoyed all the time even when he isn’t, his jawline, his everything.

After one martini each and a whole ton of pictures, Derek takes him away to a restaurant down the block that has low hanging lights in clusters over every table, where they’re seated right beside a window overlooking the busy street.

About halfway through the dinner – incredible, by the way – Derek reaches into his pocket and produces another one of those small boxes wrapped in the cartoon fish paper. He slides it across the table to Stiles’ side slowly, raising his eyebrows, and Stiles puts his fork down immediately and chews to swallow.

He says, “another?”, completely unable to hide his genuine glee. Derek has so far given him the choker, a Switch, and one of those huge books about the meanings of people’s birthdays (because he is really that nerdy person and Derek knows him too well.) He wonders what else there could possibly fucking be.

Before Derek has much of a chance to answer him, Stiles is grabbing at the box with greedy hands and tearing at the paper, biting on his tongue and popping the box open like a kid on Christmas.

Looking at what’s inside, he smiles. He looks at Derek across the table and gives him a look, shaking his head slowly. It’s his car keys, just as immaculate and shiny as Stiles can remember. “You said two weeks,” Stiles says, pulling them out and jingling them around in the air a bit. “It’s only been a week and a couple of days.”

“I can be very lenient,” Derek says, leaning back in his chair and looking all self satisfied and smug.

Which is true. While in business dealings Derek might stick to his word and stay as ruthless as he threatens, with Stiles, things are different. His bark is a lot stronger than his bite, like he seems to think the threat of something is in and of itself enough to keep Stiles docile.

Also, he’s a massive softie when it comes to Stiles anyway. He pretends like he’s not but for fuck’s sake – he really, really is. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, pocketing the keys and reaching across the table to grab at Derek’s hand where it rests right next to his half empty plate. “Thank you. This has been a really good birthday. Like, really really good. Although to be fair, my threshold for good birthdays is low.”

“Bad birthday past?” He picks his fork up again and starts poking around in his steak, which is half of his diet, honestly. Stiles has seen Derek consume enough meat in a single week to last some people for months.

“Oh, yeah. Failed parties. Worst birthday I ever had – my mom died.” He tries to make it a joke, like now this is a funny anecdote he gets to tell, but it doesn’t even make him laugh. It really doesn’t make Derek laugh, either. He just sits there and looks at Stiles with this soft expression, like he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to respond to that, and then Stiles feels like he’s throwing himself a pity party and clears his throat, looking away.

That was a bad birthday. It sort of soured the whole experience of having a birthday to begin with, if he’s being honest. He’s learned to forget about it to the best of his ability, but it seeps through the cracks sometimes.

“Anyway,” Stiles waves his hand, having to remind himself that there was a day that Derek had where his entire family save a lucky few burned to death. Stiles still hasn’t gotten the full story on that, and likely never will if Derek’s reservations persist, but it makes him feel guilty whenever he brings up his mom’s death – like his pain cannot compare. Derek would never think or say that, but Stiles feels terrible anyway.

“It’s not over yet,” Derek says with a lopsided smile, rolling with the punches and changing the subject very effectively. “I’ve got more up my sleeve.”

“You mean up your pants,” he corrects with a finger-gun, and Derek rolls his eyes.

“That’s exactly what I meant, yes, Captain Crass.”

“So, you’re allowed to call me every name under the books while we’re in bed but when I bring up the fact that you have a dick at a fancy restaurant in New York City, I’m the problem?” He scoffs. “Unfair.”

Derek swishes his wine around in his glass a bit and gives Stiles this look. He’s been looking at Stiles this way a lot lately – it’s fond and soft, a smile curling up at his lips, a glint in his eyes. Stiles likes it a lot. He wonders what his face looks like when he looks at Derek. Probably much the same.

They go back to the hotel room, Derek flicks on the lights, and Stiles makes his way right into the area where the bed is waiting for them, no subtlety whatsoever. An entire night of stuff like this gets him going pretty fast – all the money Derek threw around all day long at fancy stores in SoHo and a brief stint in Times Square, and the dinner, and the drinks, and the presents…it can really, really get him going. This weird fetish he has for money and the kink he’s got for being spoiled are things that he’s learned to accept about himself; like, yeah, it’s weird, and he and Derek have a really bizarre relationship.

But, who cares? It works for them. They’re in love.

Derek strolls along behind him and sits down on the edge of the bed, tilting his head a bit and looking Stiles up and down where he stands. He says, “you seem to have a one-track mind.”

“It’s my birthday,” Stiles says this like anyone needs to be reminded of it. “I just wondered what you were thinking of doing.”

“This is your birthday sex,” Derek reminds him, and the way he says birthday sex as if it’s a serious thing and not just an ironic term Stiles has been using all day makes his lips quirk upwards, “so what do you want?”

Stiles licks his lips. He’s not usually granted the full spectrum of possibility from Derek – usually Derek gives him choices, or suggestions, or just does whatever it is that he wants and Stiles just goes along with it.

Frankly, that’s how Stiles likes it. Derek had good ideas, after all. “What I usually want,” Stiles says in a near murmur, cocking his head to the side. “For you to control me.”

Derek grins, all his teeth out and perfect even when they’re just a bit odd in some places, and nods his assent. “Want me to tie you up?”

“Yes, please.” Stiles stands in front of the window and the city lights blare against his pale skin as he pulls his shirt off, revealing his bare chest and stomach, his low hanging pants exposing some fabric from the sparkly red panties he has on underneath. Derek sits on the edge of the bed and makes quick work of undoing the top two buttons of his own shirt, watching with dark eyes as Stiles undoes the button on his jeans and shimmies out of them.

Derek takes in the full sight of Stiles in his underwear and his matching thigh highs, eyes tracking Stiles’ every movement as he moves his fingers slowly along the elastic band of his stockings. He knows that drives Derek crazy, when he touches himself like that. “You were wearing this all night?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, smirking. “Isn’t that what you like?”

“Yeah,” he parrots back, before clearing his throat and gesturing with two fingers. “Come here.”

Stiles does. He walks forward until he’s standing right in front of where Derek is perched, keeping their eye contact the entire way so that Derek has to tip his head back to keep it up. Stiles lets Derek reach his hand out and grip the edges of Stiles’ hard-on through the lace, running his fingers up and down it a few times in a way that has Stiles gently sighing in pleasure, moving his hips forward just a bit to keep the feeling alive. Derek focuses his attention on Stiles’ outfit, tugging up on the stockings so the elastic slaps against Stiles’ skin, adjusting the set of his underwear so they’re right where he wants them.

He says, “hands and knees,” in a voice that’s quiet and gentle but severe and commanding at the same time, and Stiles can only obey. He climbs over Derek’s legs to get up onto the bed, crawling forward until he’s right in the center of it. He hangs his head in between his arms and breathes shallowly, registers the fact that Derek is moving around to likely get things set up, but doesn’t look over his shoulder to see for himself.

After all, Stiles trusts Derek almost implicitly.

Derek gets back on the bed and rustles it, coming up right behind Stiles so that his hips press against Stiles’ ass. He reaches over and takes one wrist hostage, so Stiles makes the leap and offers his other behind his back, lowering himself down to support his body against his cheek and neck. He licks his lips, and Derek snatches both wrists in one hand, before wrapping a rope tight around them and then beginning the process of tightening and tying it up.

Stiles stares at the opposite wall and smiles; can’t help it. He just loves to be tied up so fucking much, it’s almost perverse how often he thinks about it, how often he fantasizes even now that he’s with Derek, how he literally can’t stand the thought of making himself come with his own hand anymore. He doesn’t want to be allowed to touch himself while Derek is inside of him – he wants to come on his dick or by his hand, period.

Derek finishes the knot and then caresses Stiles’ arms behind his back for a moment, taking his time in rubbing down Stiles’ entire top half in a way that gives Stiles shivers and makes him spread his legs a bit wider. “Can I please have the agenda?” Stiles asks, voice hoarse already when they haven’t even gotten started.

“Of course, baby,” Derek agrees readily, taking Stiles’ ass into his hands and squeezing it intermittently. “I’m going to eat you out, finger you nice and easy, and then I’ll have you ride me.” Stiles bites his lip and nods his assent to all of this – a big fat fucking yes to every single piece of that, thanks. “And you can come, anytime you want.”

What a fucking thought. What an idea – Stiles could come right now, if he wanted to. It’s almost surreal to think about. “Thank you, daddy.”

“Mmhmm,” he accepts. Gently, he pulls Stiles’ panties down his hips and settles them right at his thighs, reaching a finger up to poke at his hole. “Ready?”

***

Stiles would like a ten-page paper written in twelve-point font, double spaced, APA format, on exactly how Derek got so fucking good at rimming. No one should be this good at it – it’s literally just a person licking at an asshole, for Christ’s sake, it shouldn’t be anything but foreplay. Or, even beyond that, anything more than just the preamble to getting actual pleasure. Stiles has had boyfriends who have licked at him before and he has to be honest; it has never been this good. It was okay, yeah, but mostly Stiles only put up with it to get his ass wet so the actual fucking could hurry up and get started.  
Derek is just…so…good at it. If it weren’t absolutely absurd, he would strongly suspect that Derek took a class. He put on his reading glasses and brought a little notebook and clicked his pen and studied how to eat a guy out. It’s the only answer.

Stiles leans forward more, drooling into the sheets and babbling nonsense, as Derek tongues at his hole so well he can only drool harder. He spreads his legs even wider, murmuring Derek’s name and twisting his fingers together where they’re tied behind his back. Derek rubs briefly at Stiles’ hardon, which makes Stiles’ eyes roll back into his head as he humps into the touch in such a way that Derek’s tongue goes in and out of him a couple of times, and Stiles whimpers softly.

“’s good,” he says mindlessly. “Really good, daddy, really, really –“

“I said you could come,” he reminds Stiles as he pulls off for a moment, rubbing at Stiles’ cockhead and then dragging those same fingers up to caress his entrance. “Are you holding out?”

“I wanna –“ he hiccups, probably because he had spent so much time panting, “I wanna come with you in me.”

“Good boy,” Derek tells him with a couple pats on Stiles’ backside, as if he’s a pet who’s done or said something right. Stiles licks his lips when Derek takes hold of his cock again, squeezing it just a bit so Stiles jerks and then relaxes into the touch with a sigh. “Want me to edge you a little bit?”

“A little,” Stiles agrees hastily, shifting his face so he’s resting on his other cheek now instead. “Just – just a little bit.”

“Okay,” he uses his lube-slick hand to pump at Stiles’ cock in that expert way he has. He strokes, and Stiles arches into the touch like he has no other choice, moaning and wondering if anyone else in this hotel can hear him right now.

“Yeah, yes,” Stiles breathes out between his teeth, closing his eyes into the pleasure. “Just like that, oh my God – I’m gonna – Derek – stop, stop –“

Derek does. He ceases his movements and uses his other hand to squeeze Stiles’ balls, seconds before Stiles was about to spill all over the sheets and ruin the whole thing. Stiles locks up all hard, thrusting his hips forward into nothing as Derek grips his balls in such a vice that he couldn’t come even if he wanted to. “Oh, my God. Perfect, thank you, daddy.” It’s weird, truly, how much he’s come to like edging. Well. Not very long edging sessions. Anything more than five or ten minutes and Stiles hate it, hates it with every fiber of his being, even while he knows, deep down, he even likes that.

The point is, it feels so good to be denied sometimes. And when it gets too hard to deal with, Stiles just reminds himself that the orgasm he’ll get after being denied will be twenty times better than the one he would’ve had if he had just come in the first place.

“Anytime,” he purrs, and Stiles shudders as a finger starts moving in and out of him. He’s been perfectly open for a decent amount of time now, so a finger feels like nothing, not even close – barely even scratching an itch. Stiles is wrung out and he’s dying for it, absolutely fucking starving, so this just isn’t going to fucking do it.

“Fuck me,” he commands, arching his back harder and turning over onto his cheek again. “Fuck me right now, I want it.”

“Give me a minute.”

“No,” he snaps, nearly wagging his ass in the air like some kind of an animal. “I want it now, I’m so ready, daddy, I’m so –“

A big hand comes down with a harsh slap on his ass, just once. It’s one, but it’s enough to have Stiles briefly going quiet and still, looking over his shoulder to find Derek smirking and raising his eyebrows like he’s impressed, or something. “There’s my mouthy little bottom,” he praises, before caressing the spot on Stiles’ ass he had spanked only seconds earlier.

Derek has never actually spanked Stiles before. He threatens it often enough that Stiles doesn’t even blink at it anymore, but he’s never actually pulled Stiles over his knee and given him a spanking with his pants around his ankles. The most he does is intermittent little slaps, here and there, mostly to either shut Stiles up or get him back into his place.

Stiles had said he was curious about it, and one thing is for certain; he sorta likes it when Derek does it during a scene to control him. If he would like an entire spanking session is anyone’s guess, but for now, he likes how it is.

“Here he is, yup,” Stiles agrees, leaning into Derek’s touch. “And he wants a dick up his ass, real, real bad.”

“Needy little slut,” he chastises, but in that voice he uses that always makes Stiles laugh. He does laugh now, too, high and breathy and surprised. Derek moves out from behind Stiles with one final poke-around in his hole, as if checking to make sure all systems are go – he knees his way up to the head of the bed, where he turns and faces Stiles head on with one of his textbook grins. He sits, leaning back up against the headboard, reaching into his open pants to pull his cock out in all its erect and pre-come slick glory. “Come on,” he says, unbuttoning his shirt a bit more and then pulling it off all the way, tossing it aside.

The pants stay on, which Stiles sort of likes. The number of times Derek gets completely naked during sex are almost equal with the number of times Derek stays at least half clothed, and there’s something really sexy about that. How Stiles is all naked except for his stockings and debauched, wet and covered in lube and strung out, and Derek honestly looks like he could get up at any second and be in public and no one would know anything had happened.

It really is sexy. Being vulnerable like this.

Stiles climbs his way up the bed with a smirk, watching as Derek strokes himself a couple of times with a lubed hand so it glistens in the dim lighting. “I’m surprised you didn’t say a cheesy line – like come have a seat, or something.”

Derek pats his thigh a couple of times. “Come sit on Santa’s lap.”

“Bye,” Stiles shouts, freezing in the middle of coming over to him and shaking his head. “Scene over. We’re done. You’re in the doghouse for that.”

“I didn’t know Santa kink was in your hard limits,” Derek lifts a teasing brow and smiles all nice and benign.

“It went without saying. Fucking pervert freak-bitch.”

“Come on,” Derek says again, but this time more seriously even in spite of his teasing smile. “Come on, baby.”

Stiles huffs another laugh, but he straddles Derek’s hips all the same. He presses his knees against Derek’s hips and then hoists himself up as best he can, giving Derek ample room to get a grip on his cock and angle it toward Stiles’ hole. He makes contact but it slips a couple of times, causing Stiles to bite his lip and sigh as the head slides against his cheeks – and then he manages to press it inside.

Stiles lowers himself, and the slide is made easy with how open and wet Stiles is. He whines as he goes down, legs shaking with the effort as he pulls himself back up. He doesn’t have hands to really help him along, and it would make it easier – but as it is, all he can do is use his lower half to propel himself up, and then down, again and again. Derek’s input into all of this isn’t to help Stiles move on his cock; he simply caresses Stiles’ bare chest and stomach, leaning his head back against the wall with his lips parted in pleasure, watching the show through heavy-lidded eyes. He licks his lips and strokes his fingers across one of Stiles’ nipples, making Stiles jump and falter in his movements for a moment.

“How is it?” Derek asks, voice all sex-heavy and fucked.

“Good,” Stiles breathes back, pumping himself up and finding his own prostate with a shudder. It’s nice to have the ability to hunt for his pleasure himself, for once, instead of having the perfectionist Derek pounding away at him and nailing him in the right place nearly from the getgo. He can transition between just enjoying the feel of Derek’s cock inside of him and hitting his g-spot, as many times as he feels like; and Derek is so big and slick and Stiles is obsessed with the way that Derek is looking at him right now, with this blissed out and relaxed expression, that he just wants to make this last as long as he possibly can.

One of Derek’s hands comes up and, unbelievably, wraps around Stiles’ cock. That’s one thing. Stiles wouldn’t be surprised if he got another one of those holds on his balls to keep him from coming until Derek came first, honestly, but instead, Derek starts stroking him off. He pumps his hand up and down in time with Stiles’ movements, and Stiles tilts his head back and cries out at the ceiling, going batty with adrenaline and exhaustion and sheer bliss. “Oh, my God…” he pants, moving harder and faster, or at least to the best of his ability. If he had the use of his hands he’d be pressing them onto Derek’s chest to get leverage, but this is fine, too.

“Feel good?” Derek asks, stroking harder and faster, so Stiles makes a little, tiny, high pitched scream that has Derek grinning at him. Stiles shudders and falls apart and his toes curl against the bed sheets, and he comes. He spills onto Derek’s hand, onto his own chest, onto Derek’s chest, a bit on the sheet, and he stops moving because he has to. He’s so tired.

Derek keeps stroking him for a bit even after Stiles is spent and he’s stopped moving entirely, and Stiles’ jaw drops as he tilts his head back again, shivering. “Thank you, daddy,” he says, breathless and high. The last time he came from stimulation on his dick from Derek’s hand while getting fucked was…never. Typically, Derek only lets him come on his cock alone, which is fine and great – but man. He forgot how good a handjob during a fucking could be.

Instead of answering that, Derek takes Stiles by his hips and moves away from the wall, hefting himself up and thrusting into Stiles’ spent body. Stiles allows it, happily at that, egging Derek on as he pounds up and chases his own orgasm. “Harder, come on,” Stiles says, while Derek grunts and flashes him a look. “Want you to come all inside me, please.”

“Fucking mark you as mine,” he grits between his teeth, and Stiles nods, slow and tired. It’s only a few more thrusts until Derek is going stuttery, stilting into these long, drawn-out things. He grunts once more, and then he’s coming, spilling across Stiles’ inner walls and holding onto his hips so hard he’s likely going to leave bruises. He pants, and Stiles pants, and they stay like that for a while.

Derek inside of him, going soft, Stiles on top of him too tired to move, and Stiles’ come all over both of them. They’re so fucking stupid and gross.

“Oh, man,” Stiles says, finally. He gets the strength to flop over Derek’s leg onto the bed, so Derek slips out and he’s free to wiggle around a bit. Derek lazily paws around at Stiles’ wrists, getting a grip on the ropes and beginning to undo them with slow fingers. “How was that?” Derek asks, voice sounding much more clear headed and like himself.

“So good. Man. Man, oh man.” Stiles’ hands come free and Derek strokes at his wrists gently, leaning down to kiss at them a couple of times with his soft lips. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Derek says back. “Happy birthday, again.”

Derek pulls him up so he’s lying on his back, and then arranges them so they’re facing one another with their heads on respective pillows. They spend a couple of minutes making goo-goo eyes at one another because they’re disgusting, just basking in each other’s presence. Stiles flicks his eyes beyond Derek’s head to where the window overlooking the city sits, and he just alternates between looking at all the lights and looking at Derek’s face.

Honestly, he can’t decide which he likes more. It’s gross.

They start to kiss lazily, mostly just rubbing their lips against one another. It’s as though they just have to be touching, somehow and someway, all the time, otherwise they’ll spontaneously combust. They kiss, and Derek puts his hand on Stiles’ bare hip all possessive and gentle at the same time, while Stiles pulls off and angles his head back, baring his neck so Derek will take the hint.

He does. He peppers kisses along Stiles’ neck and jaw, while Stiles grins up at the ceiling and marinates in the feeling of being so loved and appreciated. Around the time Derek starts sucking a pretty impressive mark into Stiles’ neck, Derek’s phone starts aggressively vibrating on the bedside table, screen lighting up.

He ignores it. He just keeps pulling and biting on Stiles’ skin, while the phone rings and rings with no one paying attention to it. Ten seconds or so of silence pass after the call is missed, save for the wet sounds of Derek’s lips working against Stiles’ skin, and then the buzzing starts up again.

Swearing under his breath, Derek pulls away. “No,” Stiles immediately begs, grabbing at Derek’s jaw to try and get him to come back. “Come on, no, please? No work.”

“I’m sorry,” he says genuinely, freeing himself from Stiles’ grip easily. “I have a rule. If someone calls me more than once in a ten minute period of time, it’s an emergency. I have to take it.”

Stiles pouts, watching Derek fumble over to the table and swipe his phone up. He glares at the lock screen and the name glowing at him from it, scowls, and presses the thing to his ear. Stiles sinks into the pillows and bites his lip, sighing through his nose.

“This better be life or fucking death,” is the first thing out of Derek’s mouth, voice low and serious. It’s crazy how differently he talks to his business partners, as Stiles still refers to them as, as opposed to Stiles or anybody else. When he talks to people like Scott, he’s friendly and good for a chat, engaged in the conversation. With strangers he’s polite and civil, but never offers too much to a conversation.

But with them, holy shit. You’d think he wished they were all dead.

Derek listens to the voice on the other line for a moment, staring across the room with a huge frown on his face, and then his expression switches. The more whoever it is speaks, the more his face starts to fall. He goes from angry looking to surprised to shocked to entirely dismayed in ten seconds flat, nervously flicking his eyes over to where Stiles is still laying out on the bed with a wet neck, waiting for him.

They lock eyes, and Derek clears his throat. “Hold on,” he says, moving to stand up from the bed. He hefts himself up onto his feet, buttons his pants up with one hand, and looks over his shoulder before walking away. “It’s important.” And that’s all he says.

He walks away, running a hand through his hair again and again, and goes out onto the balcony. He slides the glass door open, and then closes it nearly all the way, out of sight and out of mind. Stiles watches this with a frown and rubs at his jaw, feeling a little miffed.

Of course, if it’s important, then it’s important. The entire reason Stiles is even here in this hotel room and in this city is because of what Derek does – who is he to get pissy when he’s just doing his job, after all?

After two minutes of just lying there waiting, he gets bored as he is prone to do, and sits up. He leans over and tugs his stockings off one by one, tossing them over the edge of the bed and stretching his legs out, before putting his bare feet on the floor. He hunts for his suitcase, and can barely hear the low tones of Derek sounding hushed and serious right outside while he paws for some clothes.

He gets his pajama pants and shucks them up onto his hips, moseying off toward the bathroom with a big yawn. As he passes the balcony, he can’t help but notice that the sliding door is cracked open. Just an inch, maybe less, but it’s enough. Derek’s voice gets clearer the closer he gets to the crack, and his eyes slide to look at him where he’s facing away from the room, out at the lights, one hand pressing his phone to his ear while the other is palming his forehead.

Stiles licks his lips and thinks he shouldn’t eavesdrop. It’s not really any of his business, and Derek had made it clear on multiple occasions that it is in everyone’s best interest if Stiles knows next to nothing about Derek’s dealings. He shouldn’t even know the names of his comrades, to be honest.

But he can’t help himself. He is who he is.

He pauses next to the door and hovers a bit in the shadows, in case Derek were to turn around to check to see if Stiles were listening. Honestly, if he were smart and he cared about Stiles not tuning into this conversation, he would be checking. There might still be a part of Derek that is naïve enough to think that Stiles is clueless.

He's the son of the Sheriff. He’s not clueless at all.

“…not saying I think she’s bluffing. I don’t think she’s bluffing. I think she’s just deranged enough to do something like that if only to be petty,” he’s saying, and Stiles presses himself into the corner and blinks owlishly. “I think she doesn’t have the means to execute it.”

A pause, Derek rubbing his jaw and shaking his head. “What’s she going to do? Shoot him in the head if I don’t pay her?”

Stiles wants context so bad he’d eat his fingers off to get it, furrowing his brow and leaning in a bit closer.

“Read it to me again. The note. Let me hear it one more time.” A long, extended pause, and Stiles sits there wishing he could hear the other side of this fucking phone conversation. Derek sighs, long and hard and so full of exhaustion it’s a wonder he doesn’t collapse under the weight of it. “Just – what am I supposed to do about this now? What the hell am I supposed to do right now? I’m thousands of miles away…Christ. Excuse the fuck out of me for not knowing the exact distance between here and California, Lydia.”

Ah, so it’s Lydia. Stiles has had very minimal interactions with her – closer to none, if he’s being honest. They’ve crossed paths, and she’s never even really introduced herself. She just looks at him in a way that’s neither mean nor friendly. Blank and passive, like she couldn’t care less about him. He prefers that to the way Erica acts though, any fucking day.

“I’m not afraid of her like I used to be,” he snaps, and then his voice rises like he’s talking over her. “I’m not sixteen fucking years old anymore. She’s back up to her bullshit, coming after me like this. I’m not going to lose sleep over this. Okay? Just – I’ll be back day after tomorrow. Hold tight until then.”

Without another word, he ends the call. Stiles should walk away, at this point, dive into the bathroom and come out all innocent like he’d heard nothing, nothing at all. But instead he stays standing in the shadows, swallowing thickly and staring at Derek’s back.

Derek pockets his phone and then rubs both hands down his face, before placing them on the railing and leaning over, looking out onto the busy street below. He stands there for so long. Just standing and staring with his shoulders tense and tight, and Stiles can only hover for so long.

He tentatively pads forward, calling Derek’s name and reaching his fingers out to grab the handle of the door. Derek whips around immediately as if he’s been startled, eyes a bit big in his head as Stiles slides the door open all the way. The crisp air blows into the room and Derek looks at him for a moment, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been.

“What are you doing?” Stiles asks, hugging his arms against his bare chest. It’s freezing out here, but Derek is standing there in no shirt and his pants barely hanging onto his hips like it’s nothing to him. “Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine,” he assures Stiles. He says it too quickly, much too quickly, and it rings loud and clear to Stiles as an outright lie. It’s not like Stiles can call him out on it, and it’s not like he can really ask what’s wrong – that’s a catch to their relationship, where Stiles has to just accept what Derek does.

He can’t ask questions about certain things. It’s something he is still learning to deal with.

“Come on, get inside,” Derek ushers Stiles back into the room with his broad body, slamming the door shut behind him so the cold air dissipates in their wake like it never was.

Their bodies are close. Stiles looks up to meet his eyes with a question that he can’t ask on his lips, and Derek immediately wraps his arms around Stiles in a big bear hug. His skin is cold from standing out there for so long, and Stiles shivers against him. Feeling this, Derek holds on tighter.

They stand like that for what feels like a long time. Derek holding Stiles against him like he’s afraid of Stiles being taken away, clutching and rubbing his hand up and down Stiles’ bare back. Stiles is nervous. He doesn’t know why, or where this anxious energy is coming from, but he is.

Derek places a kiss on Stiles’ forehead. He says, “I love you so much,” and Stiles burrows a bit deeper into his skin. He can’t shake that feeling.

That impending feeling. It’s like how it was when they were first getting started and Derek was lying to him all the time. There’s just something that Derek isn’t telling him, and it doesn’t feel like regular run of the mill business.

It feels dangerous. Stiles can’t ask.


	10. Hufflepuff.

Stiles sleeps on the car ride back from the airport, passed out with his mouth lolling open in the passenger seat as Derek drives through what little traffic there is on a late Sunday evening. He wakes up to Derek’s hand gently jostling his shoulder, blinking and smacking his lips together before rubbing his eyes.

“Sleepy, huh?” Derek asks, a sly smile on his face as he reaches up to play with Stiles’ hair. He probably has terrible bedhead, but Derek doesn’t seem to mind much at all.

Stiles yawns, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, and he nods. It was a pretty busy three days. They walked almost everywhere because it’s so easy to do in Manhattan, except for the one time that Stiles forced Derek onto the Subway because it’s a rite of god damn passage. Derek did it, miserably but quietly all the same, and he looked so wildly out of place in the grimy setting it was almost comical. On top of all that, they had enough sex to last them another two weeks, and Stiles’ body is all sore and tired and all he wants to do is nap harder and longer.

But he looks out the passenger window and sees his condo, Scott’s car parked out front, and his own sitting in the exact same spot he left it last time he was allowed to drive it. He’s home, now, and the vacation is over. He leans his head up against the leather seat and sighs through his nose.

“Hey, uh,” Derek begins – and he says uh. It’s weird enough that Stiles turns to look at him with a frown, perplexed and sleepy still. “…you could stay over at my place tonight. I would like that.”

Stiles likes the sound of that, he really does. Not only because Derek’s bed is soft and has the best sheets and is so huge (huge enough that even when Stiles does his textbook sprawling-out-like-a-dead-octopus routine once he’s entered REM and is completely dead to the world, Derek doesn’t get annoyed by it, which is a blessing), but because the thought of being away from Derek after all the time they’ve spent together leaves a very bad taste in his mouth. It’s like they can’t be near each other enough, no matter what they do.

It’s never enough.

All the same, he has to shake his head and unbuckle, rubbing at his eyes some more. “I can’t. I’ve got work first thing and I’m barely ready for it.”

Derek stares at him for a long moment. Then, he looks out the windshield and furrows his brow, fingers gripping the steering wheel so tight he’s practically white-knuckling it. “Are you sure? There’s orgasms at my house.”

Stiles gives him a look, before a smile spreads across his face before he can help it. “You act like that’s all I think about,” he paws at his pockets to make sure he has the essentials – phone, wallet, keys.

“I don’t think that,” Derek disagrees. “I think there’s a space for food and sleep in your head, as well.”

Even as he’s joking around, Stiles can tell that something has Derek feeling particularly…anxious. He keeps shifting around in his seat, glaring down the street and clutching onto the steering wheel as if it’s his stress ball. He bites his lip and looks at Stiles one more time, his eyes serious and his lips a firm line. “You sure you don’t want to come over? I’ll get you up in the morning. We can have breakfast.”

He’s really, really trying to sell this one, Stiles thinks. The thought of leaving Stiles here by himself with Scott is, for whatever reason, particularly abhorrent to him. All the same, Stiles has to shake his head again. “I can’t. It’s so tempting, but I can be responsible sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” Derek agrees, his voice a little low. He seems disappointed. Stiles feels like he’s just stepped on a puppy’s paw, watching Derek’s face fall, and he can’t help himself from leaning across the center console to kiss him on the lips.

“Aw, are you gonna miss me?” He demands, wrapping his fingers around Derek’s chin and giving him a wide smile.

Derek looks Stiles in the face, eyes intense and bright even in the dim lighting from the streetlight over their heads. “I miss you as soon as you walk out the door,” he says, and means it. Entirely and completely, he means that.

Stiles doesn’t know how it’s going to work. He doesn’t know what they’re going to do about Derek’s lifestyle clashing with Stiles’ father being the Sheriff, and he doesn’t know what they’re going to do about the fact that Derek is despicable in the eyes of so many and an unforgivable criminal who deserves to go to prison – shit, Stiles doesn’t even know what to think about the very real possibility that Derek could be in prison any fucking day now. He could be arrested tomorrow.

These are all real things. This is the reality of their relationship, the parts that not even the money and the sex can cover up. These are the things he should be thinking of when Derek puts his hands on him, nothing more, nothing less. It’s a wonder he hasn’t gone running for the hills, listening to stories of sixteen year olds being shot and weird phone calls at two in the morning regarding shooting people in the head.

But Stiles is fairly certain that he’s got himself in quicksand. He’s hip-deep in the stuff, trapped, nowhere to go, and he doesn’t even want to. This is his life, he and Derek. They’re going to get married.

Stiles kisses him again, soft and sure at the same time, and pulls back with a long sigh. “That was the best birthday I ever had. You’re a good boyfriend and uh –“ he scratches behind his ear, blushing. “…a really good dom. I feel really safe, with you.”

There’s this twitch, right at the corner of Derek’s eye. He looks down, not meeting Stiles’ eyes for a second that feels loud and small and huge at the same time. When he looks back up, he’s frowning. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he says. To add more mystery to that statement, he surges forward and kisses Stiles on the lips again, as though saying something like that is normal.

Then, for Derek, it just might be. Stiles tries not to read too much into it – he’s learned, especially in recent weeks, that Derek has a martyr complex. He thinks he’s the worst person alive, and he more likely than not believes that he doesn’t deserve Stiles. So of course, he’s going to say bizarre shit like that from time to time; he’s not normal. He’s not like other boys.

“Call me,” Stiles says, popping open his door. “And try not to get too weird and sad or whatever – okay?”

“Okay,” Derek agrees, watching Stiles like a hawk as he picks his suitcase out from the back and slings it over his shoulder. Stiles gives Derek a two fingered wave through the car window once all the doors are shut, turns on his heel, and walks up his yard to his front door.

He gets to the porch, looks over his shoulder, and sees Derek is still sitting there. He sits there, watching, until Stiles is in the house with door shut behind him.

***

Daddy, 6:45 AM : Good morning   
Me, 7:05 AM : Is it? Not enough coffee in world   
Daddy, 7:05 AM : It is not even THAT early   
Me, 7:06 AM : The sun isn’t even warm yet. Winter has fallen   
Daddy, 7:08 AM : Big day ahead? Tell me details.   
Me, 7:10 AM : Let’s see…coffee, drive, work, hope to impress boss with a good first piece, subway sandwich as reward for making it to lunch, pitch ideas for second piece, drive home.   
Daddy, 7:11 AM : Huge day. She’ll be impressed. Trust me.   
Me, 7:13 AM : I love my supportive, stupid daddy (:   
Me, 7:13 AM : What about you? Tell ME details!   
Daddy, 7:15 AM : Huh. Nothing too interesting.   
Me, 7:16 AM : Riiggghttt….your work just bores me to tears!   
Daddy, 7:17 AM : Good luck, not that you need it.  
***

Daddy, 12:45 PM : Eating that sandwich?   
Me, 12:47 PM : Eating it! Wanna see a pic?   
Daddy, 12:48 PM : Of your underwear? Yeah.  
Stiles sends a pic of his half eaten sandwich, and Derek’s response is the disappointed emoji, which makes Stiles laugh at his desk, turning from side to side in his swivel chair.

***

Daddy, 7:45 PM : You could come over tonight. Not a lot going on, and my place has started to feel very empty.  
Me, 7:47 PM : I’d love it!!!!!!!!!! I can’t ): I’ve got some work to do.   
Me, 7:48 PM : We could phone sex later, tho.   
Daddy, 7:50 PM : Tempting, but I’d rather put my hands on you physically.   
Me, 7:52 PM : You’re just gonna have to wait!  
***

“Dude,” Scott comes barreling home from work the next night, kicking his shoes off at the door and immediately flying into the living room where Stiles is parked on the couch eating cereal for dinner. “Listen to my idea.”  
“My ears are pricked like a dog,” Stiles says, looking up to meet Scott’s eyes as he chews.

Scott holds his hand out as if he’s about to deliver an idea on par with the Theory of Relativity, inhales a great big breath for dramatic pause, and says, “we need to have a Halloween party.”

Stiles’ face lights up and he puts his food down on the coffee table in front of himself, nodding enthusiastically as he swallows what he has left in his mouth. “Dude, yes. Fuck yes!”

“Costume party,” Scott elaborates, and Stiles is all on board with this. They haven’t had a party in months upon months, not since he and Derek started banging on the regular. Which is a real shame – because Scott and Stiles were sort of notorious, especially in college, for being those kids who would throw a party for any day that ended in Y. Of course getting grown up jobs and being functioning members of society with 401k’s is excuse enough to stop throwing parties a little bit…but not altogether.

They’re party kids. They might always be party kids, even when they’re 65.

And that aside, Halloween is Scott and Stiles’ favorite holiday. They get to dress like idiots and make fools of themselves and eat excessive amounts of candy, and all of it is waved away as just what’s expected. A Halloween party is just what the doctor ordered, honestly.

There’s just one, little, tiny, miniscule problem. “Dude,” Stiles rubs his face, “I love it. I’m into it. But I’m…broke.”

Scott opens his mouth to retort, and then closes it just as quickly, frowning as he stares off into space. He might be mentally entering his own bank account, currently. “Shit,” he says, blinking. “Me fucking too. I’ve been taking Kira out and wining and dining, you know?”

Stiles nods. He knows all about that – he hears about it pretty much constantly, not that he’s complaining. It’s good to see Scott happy, finally. “Well, shit. We can’t have a half ass Halloween party.”

Scott nods right back at him. “If we don’t have a smoke machine, we might as well just take a shit on Wes Craven’s grave.”

This is a bummer. Back in college, they used to live in a shitty shoebox apartment where they shared a bedroom. Those were pretty iconic times, whenever Stiles reflects on them; one night, he and Scott got blackout drunk and allegedly spent about two solid hours making out with one another in the corner of their own party, and Stiles only knows that this happened for solid certainty because there are videos of it occurring. Two straight hours, he and Scott, practically eating each other’s faces off.

The conversation the next day, hungover as shit and waking up in the same bed together with their limbs all tangled up, wasn’t even weird. Whatever. Stiles is gay, and Scott has always struck Stiles as at least vaguely bi-curious, and they’re best friends. Stiles would let Scott fuck him, if he weren’t in a relationship, and have zero reservations about it.

Anyway, they lived in a shit apartment and got blasted wasted all the time and party integrity was very important to them. Having the best parties and being the two dudes who make out when they get drunk was a point of pride for them. Everyone wanted to come to their tiny place and drink and hang out with them because they were cool.

And god damn, it’s been a while since Stiles has really felt cool.

“You got my hopes up,” Stiles says, picking his cereal back up and shaking his head sadly as he scrapes his spoon along the edges to get some stuck pieces of cereal back into the milk. “Remember when we had extra income?”

Scott stands there with his hands on his hips for a moment, frowning and looking all disappointed. He scuffs his foot into the carpeting underfoot, and then he blinks. He looks up, as if a lightbulb is going off over his head, and says, “now hang on.”

Stiles chews, waiting.

“I have an idea.”

“We’re going to rob a party store?”

Scott grins. “We do have another way to pay for this party,” he says, in a tone of voice that suggests Stiles should just immediately get it. Stiles doesn’t; he stares at him for a long time, waiting for the punchline to come, while Scott stares back with that shiteating grin on his face. He starts pressing the pads of his fingers together like an evil genius in a kid’s movie, like there should be a fluffy white cat somewhere for him to pet or something. “Why don’t you give daddy a little phone call?”

Stiles stops mid-chew, because he honestly hadn’t even thought of that. And really, he thinks as he puts his bowl back down and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, he wouldn’t have ever thought of it to begin with. It’s…ridiculous. “You want me to ask Derek to bankroll a Halloween party for me?”

“Yes,” Scott, for one, doesn’t seem to think it’s that ridiculous at all.

“There’s no way I’m going to ask him that, come on,” he shakes his head, even as he’s smiling. “Come on! He would say it’s stupid and childish, or something.”

“Uh, the entire point of him is to buy you what you ask for, I thought.”

The entire point of him is to be a good boyfriend. The money is just the cherry on top. “I don’t think…”

“Look. Just ask,” Scott says, interrupting Stiles before he can go any farther with his argument. “Asking isn’t a crime. It’s just a party, and he’ll probably appreciate it that you actually asked him this time. Unlike…you know,” he rubs his jaw, clearing his throat as he sets his eyes down on the ground. “…last time.”

Stiles learned after the fact that Scott was, in fact, in the house the entire time that punishment session occurred. He was sat in his room, right fucking next door, apparently too terrified to move. It makes Stiles laugh to the point of peeing his pants whenever he thinks about it.

He rubs at his face for a moment and sighs. Really, Scott has a point. There’s no harm in asking. Yeah, Derek might say no and he might be really unimpressed with the concept altogether, but who cares? Derek has more important things to worry about than Stiles and Scott’s parties, honestly.

“Okay,” Stiles agrees, reaching back down to pick his bowl up from the table. “Let me finish eating this, and then I’ll call.”

Scott taps his foot impatiently, watching with narrowed eyes as Stiles takes his cereal bite by bite. Maybe just as a way to make the time between him being unsure of the fate of his party and him being positive of the fate of his party go faster, he clears his throat and asks, “so how are you guys doing?”

“Good,” Stiles answers. “Really great, actually. He’s so nice to me and he’s smart and funny and all. I don’t know,” he shrugs, scooping some more cereal up. “I think he’s like…the one.”

Scott’s eyebrows raise, but he doesn’t necessarily look surprised. Of course he wouldn’t be – he’s heard every single piece of this relationship from start to now, after all.

“Although, he has been…sorta weird, lately?”

As soon as the words are out of Stiles’ mouth, Scott is on the couch right next to him, leaning his chin in his palm and smiling. “Dish,” he says, grinning, and Stiles has to look away to keep from smiling himself.

“I don’t know. It’s dumb and I’m probably just reading too much into it anyway.” He looks down at the milk in his bowl, the few straggling corn puffs still floating around. “He just…ever since New York, he seems to always be trying to get me to hang out with him. And he’s, like, constantly checking up on me.”

Scott furrows his brow. “You mean, like, obsessively? In a stalkery way?”

“No,” Stiles immediately says, shaking his head. “No just – he doesn’t demand to know where I am or who I’m with or anything., not like a controlling possessive freak. He just…talks to me all the time.” He blinks. “It sounds even stupider when I say it out loud.”

“No, I get what you mean,” Scott assures him. “Probably, he just misses you a lot. His job doesn’t afford a lot of spare time, huh?”

Stiles frowns, before sipping off the last of his milk and putting the empty bowl down in front of him. “And he really doesn’t have anyone else to talk to that isn’t a psycho,” he murmurs. “We’re probably just super obsessed with one another. It’s pretty gross.”

Scott huffs a laugh through his nose and nods, and Stiles guesses he feels better about it. It’s not that it makes Stiles uncomfortable or creeps him out that Derek is talking to him so much or always asking Stiles to come over, because it’s Derek, but it’s just that it seems out of sorts for him to be so…candid, for lack of a better word.

All the same, he reaches into his pocket and pulls his phone out, holding it out in the air for Scott to zero in on. Scott smiles giddily, practically vibrating out of his seat as he watches Stiles go into his contacts and select Derek for a phone call.

He calls, pressing it against his ear, while Scott sits there and stares at him, wide eyed and excited. In perfect Derek fashion, he answers on the second ring and sounds happy to hear from him. “Hi, daddy!” Stiles caws, probably overdoing it.

And then, certainly overdoing it. Because there’s a brief pause on the other line, before Derek says, “you want something.”

Stiles sputters for a moment, shaking his head even though Derek can’t see it. “What? Why would you –“

“I can hear it in your tone,” Derek defends over Stiles’ babbling, and then he clears his throat. “So, what is it?”

With a hand to his forehead, Stiles can’t keep from nervously smiling. He looks at Scott, who pushes him forward with a hand in the air and big eyes, and then he has to look away before he bursts out laughing. “Okay. So, uh – daddy. Scott and I wanna have a party.”

“Okay,” Derek says.

“A Halloween party. And we wanna really – you know. We want it to the nines.”

“Okay.”

“…so I was just….” Stiles fingers at the pattern on the couch, staring at it as he works, “…wondering if maybe you could uh…pay?”

“Pay for…?”

“The party,” he clarifies, shrinking in on himself a bit.

“You want me to pay for you and Scott’s Halloween party?” He sounds a bit mystified. Not annoyed or angry or anything – but just…puzzled. Like it almost doesn’t make sense to him. “What, like the liquor?”

“Uh…” Stiles bites his lip. “…all of it?”

There’s quiet, for just a moment. And then Derek is speaking, and it sounds like he has a smile in his voice, which is a relief. “Of course I’ll pay for your party, baby. Make me a list of what you want and I’ll have it at your house by Friday.”

Stiles almost can’t believe it. Really, it’s not even that big of a fucking deal – they’re talking, at most, a thousand dollars, and that’s really and honestly pushing it. Derek bought Stiles a fucking car, and he’s really gonna sit here feeling all amazed that Derek is going to throw a party for him at his beck and call. “Thank you, okay, wow,” he says, giving Scott the thumbs up before turning away to blush and chew on his thumb. “And of course, you’ll be there.”

“Ah…” he hesitates. He’s likely imagining being at a house party with a sea of people he’d rather shoot himself in the foot than hang around with. But, still, since Stiles is asking, he has no other choice but to sigh deeply and say, “yeah, I’ll be there.”

“In costume.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he reiterates, voice all serious sounding. “That’s where the line is being drawn.”

***

Streamers must be orange and black  
Smoke machine*** ***highly important***  
Lots of skeletons  
Liquor liquor liquor  
Beer for the weak   
Soda (to put the liquor in)  
Snacks etc etc *cupcakes in specific must be spooky   
Flashing lights of the orange and purple variety  
*!CANDY!*  
More liquor   
General spooky stuff  
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read,” Derek says, holding it out and away from his body as he appraises it with a grimace. It is pretty ridiculous – Scott and Stiles made it together almost immediately after Stiles hung up with Derek. It’s covered in little doodles of ghosts and some spilled soda, in Stiles and Scott’s chicken scratch handwriting done with purple ink. “What does general spooky stuff even mean?”

“Use your imagination,” Stiles insists, and Derek stares at him with a steady blink.

“I don’t have one,” he insists, and Stiles thinks he might actually be right about that. Some people just don’t have very vivid imaginations – Derek strikes Stiles as being one of those types of people. He’s very type A. His idea of a creative afternoon is likely organizing his closet by colors for six hours. “Anyway.” He folds the piece of paper up and slides it into his wallet carefully, while Stiles watches with a pleased smirk. “Consider it done.”

“And I think we should revisit the topic of you wearing a costume,” Stiles immediately starts in on, even while Derek leans back in his spot across from Stiles in the breakfast nook and covers his eyes with his hands, huffing a great, big, exhausted sigh. “Come on! Please? You should go as, like, Al Capone.”

“Oh, yeah,” Derek snaps, all sarcastic and biting. “That’s a great idea, Stiles. Let me show up to a party at the Sheriff’s son’s house dressed up as a mob boss. Fantastic.”

Stiles smirks. He’s not affected at all whatsoever by Derek’s more biting remarks, not anymore – he can be a real dick, when he wants to be, but Stiles has learned that when he gets like this, it has literally next to nothing to do with Stiles personally. “You seem a little tense,” Stiles comments, tapping his fingers on the tabletop.

He breathes out through his mouth and runs a finger over his lips, nodding a couple of times. “Just…some bullshit going on. I won’t bore you.” It’s not that it would bore him, Stiles knows, staring at Derek with a calculating gaze. It’s that Derek simply doesn’t want Stiles to know, and more and more lately, that’s started to get under Stiles’ skin.

He and Stiles are serious. At a certain point, he has to be willing and able to tell Stiles something. Maybe not every little detail of every little thing, but something. Stiles would marry him, and yet he can’t figure out a way to talk to Stiles about damn near anything.

“Do you want to…” Stiles reaches his foot up underneath the table, pressing his socked toes against Derek’s crotch and raising his eyebrows, “…work it out?”

Dropping his hands down onto the table, Derek lets Stiles poke his toes against his pants a little bit more with an incredulous smile on his face, rolling his eyes. “You are a slut,” he accuses, taking Stiles’ ankle hostage and gripping tight so he can’t move.

“I know,” Stiles says back, not even bothering to try and free himself from Derek’s hold. “You like it.”

Two fingers caress the bare skin of Stiles’ lower calf, going around and around in circles as he and Derek share eye contact over the table. Stiles licks his lips and raises his eyebrows again, tempted to just pull his shirt off right then and there to get the ball rolling. “Want to go to my bedroom?” Derek asks.

“How much time do you have before you have to go back and do whatever it is you do?” There’s a bit of a bite and accusation to Stiles’ words, but if Derek notices it, he chooses to at least not acknowledge it.

“An hour and a half.”

“Aw, that’s plenty of time.”

“So it is,” Derek agrees, finally letting go of Stiles’ leg in favor of standing up, gesturing for Stiles to do the same. He does, immediately popping up onto his feet and padding along behind Derek as they head off to the bedroom – and Stiles can’t help but smile at Derek’s broad back as his shoulder muscles move, thinking how lucky he is that he gets to have sex on the reg with a dude this fucking hot and this fucking powerful and this fucking wealthy.

It hits him sometimes, still. How crazy it is.

They do on occasion have sex that is the textbook definition of vanilla – usually when they want a quick fuck or they don’t have a lot of time, and this is just such one of those times. Stiles likes these times as much as he likes the kinkier stuff, mostly just because it’s so different. It’s fun sometimes to switch up how they do things, even if the “new” way they’re doing it is just the “normal” way, by anyone else’s standards. After all, their relationship isn’t really defined for them by the labels “dom” or “sub” even if they use those words from time to time – they’re just in a relationship, and they like kinky stuff mutually. It’s really not that deep.

So Stiles gets stripped down and so does Derek, kissing and fumbling through their clothes with laughter and roaming hands, and the kinkiest thing about any of it is that Stiles is wearing a pair of polka-dot ladies underwear. In a way, Stiles can’t ever really be a full vanilla; he’ll literally kill himself before putting on a pair of boxers ever the fuck again.

Derek gets Stiles seated on the edge of the bed and helps him work the panties off down his legs, tossing them off to the side. He keeps his hold on Stiles’ legs, hoisting them up with one hand and using the other to get a couple of pokes at Stiles’ entrance. Derek blinks, surprised, leaning down to get a look at it while Stiles grins up at the ceiling.

“I got ready,” he says, biting his lip in a bit of embarrassment when Derek’s eyes lock on his again. Stiles just shrugs. “I knew you’d wanna fuck. I wanted to, too.”

“Slut,” Derek accuses again, but with absolutely no venom whatsoever. It’s more of a term of endearment and affection at this point, as near and dear to Stiles’ heart as baby is. Derek bends Stiles’ legs back, leaning his body over Stiles’ and climbing up onto the bed with him, kissing him on the lips once, twice, and then angling himself down to get at Stiles’ neck.

Stiles gasps when Derek bites at a hickey he had left there only days before, the bruise still raw and fresh for the most part, and reaches up to paw a bit mindlessly at his hair. “Did that hurt?” Derek asks against his neck, voice muffled by his skin.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Do it again.”

Derek does, harder, and Stiles’ dick twitches against Derek – it’s just the perfect amount of hurt and not-hurt, good and bad, soft and hard, all at once, that he can’t help himself. He’s not a pain guy, not by any stretch of the imagination…but a little bruise here, a little bruise there? That’s fine. He likes to be marked.

Finally, he pulls back and rises up, keeping his hands on Stiles’ legs with a tiny smile on his face. Stiles smiles back, soft and loving, as he reaches out to run his fingers down Derek’s bare chest. Derek lines himself up and presses in, pausing for a moment when the head breeches the entrance to gauge Stiles’ reaction. Stiles is still and quiet, legs bent up and his lips parted, watching Derek with hooded eyes. Derek pushes all the way in, slowly sliding in and out a couple of times as if testing the waters.

Stiles bites his lip and angles his head back, panting once. “Fuck me,” he begs up at the ceiling, and Derek is quick to oblige. He picks up his pace and goes at it the way he usually does, because Stiles swears that when it comes to sex Derek has one speed and one speed alone. And honestly, it’s fine by Stiles because it gets the fucking job done, but sometimes Stiles wants to ask him to go slow.

He’d like to have sex some night with Derek just taking his time, slow, slow, slow, lazy and calculated love making like they’re in a movie or something. He knows if he asked, Derek would say yes, but then he remembers how good it feels to have his organs fucked up into his head by Derek’s brutality – and he forgets.

His eyes roll back into his head and he grabs at Derek’s hands where they’re holding Stiles’ legs up – he pries them off his legs and manages to keep those legs up himself. With shaking fingers he locks their hands together tight, squeezing for dear life and loving how big and strong Derek’s hands are as compared to his own.

That’s one thing he likes about vanilla sex; as much as he likes being tied up, there’s something to be said for the freedom to touch. To grab Derek’s hand and hold onto it, to have Derek oblige him and squeeze back. To touch his chest, or his neck, or his face, the freedom to have his hands all over every inch of his body.

He drags one of Derek’s hands up to his mouth, kissing it and whimpering. His entire body has jerked up the bed a bit, so he’s a lot closer to the pillows than he remembers being, and he has to smile as he realizes that – Derek is so big and strong and he fucks like his life depends on it. It feels good. It always does.

Stiles pulls Derek’s hand down again, to rest against his neck, and he licks his lips. He looks Derek in the eyes with his mouth parted, sucking in through his teeth on a particularly harsh thrust. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s thinking, only that he knows he’s thought about it before and he’s wanted it and always wanted to ask, and now seems like the perfect time, as good a time as any. He sucks in another deep breath, and says, “choke me.”

Derek stutters a bit, faltering. “What?” He asks, breathless.

“I said, choke me.” He takes Derek’s hand and pushes it right against his throat, curling the fingers around it and loving how big it feels against his skinny neck. Derek could literally snap his fucking neck in half, if he wanted to, and Stiles…just loves that. “Please?”

Derek has slowed down a bit, alternating between watching his dick go in and out of Stiles’ body and looking up to see Stiles’ face. It’s like he’s trying to decide whether or not Stiles is kidding. Stiles isn’t. Not at all.

In testament to this, he presses down on Derek’s fingers around his neck and bites his lip. “Squeeze,” he says, and Derek hesitates again.

Then, he does. It’s gentle at first, just the faintest press of Derek’s fingers against both sides of his throat, his palm digging into the front hard and strong. Stiles pants, struggling to get air as Derek keeps fucking him, and fucking him, and then he pushes more. “Harder,” he croaks, squeezing his eyes shut and dropping his jaw open. “Until I can’t breathe, fucking choke me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Derek mutters, and gets the most bizarre look on his face. Stiles can’t read it at the moment, too caught up in everything else – but all the same, Derek squeezes harder. And then harder, still, so Stiles can’t catch his breath. It cuts off, against Derek’s hand and strength, and Stiles wants to moan or react to Derek nailing his prostate but he can’t, and his mouth is open and he’s trying his hardest, his absolute hardest to breathe, but he’s…choking.

These sounds come out of his throat, nearly cut off by Derek’s hand. They’re desperate. It sounds like he’s literally dying or something, kicking his leg out a bit and then, mindlessly, using his own fingers to claw at Derek’s hand as if he didn’t ask for this in the first place. He’s just not thinking. He doesn’t dislike it, not at all, but it’s more than he thought it would be and he feels tears gathering in the corners of his eyes and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t –

“Safe word.”

The hand is off his neck and Derek is out of him, gone off of his skin completely, not even touching him, and Stiles breathes. He sucks in a big lungful of air, turning over onto his side a bit to cough. And then he coughs again, nearly hacking up a bit of phlegm as he does so, twisting his face up and pawing gently at his throat.

It’s tender. It hurts, will probably leave a bruise. It occurs to Stiles just then the reason that everything stopped, the reason why he can breathe again and Derek isn’t near him.

He is not the one who safe worded out. Hell, he was enjoying it, even if it was a little intense and more than he initially bargained for. He was really, really not minding it at all, so no. He didn’t safe word.

Derek did.

Stiles turns over to the other side of the bed, still rubbing a bit at his throat and furrowing his brow. Derek is there, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hand covering his eyes, naked still, and Stiles licks his lips. He clears his throat, says, “what’s the –“

Almost like a porcupine being taunted, Derek is immediately lashing out. Seemingly out of fucking nowhere, he’s rounding on Stiles and he looks – angry. He barks, “don’t fucking ask me that ever again.”

Stiles is taken aback. His mouth hangs open and he blinks, and he blinks, and looks at Derek being angry at him, and doesn’t know what to…say. Do. Anything.

“You don’t just do that, you understand me?” He shouts, and Stiles doesn’t. “You don’t just ask me to do something we’ve never discussed, you’ve never mentioned, and practically force my fucking hand to choke you. I could’ve – I could’ve –“

Stiles curls in on himself a bit, and Derek rubs at his face some more. He looks so fucking wrecked, distraught, and Stiles stares. He doesn’t know where to go from here. This is out of left field, and his neck really does fucking hurt and it’s sort of taking the focal point, and Derek is so upset and Stiles feels that it’s his fault. It has to be.

“…I could’ve seriously, seriously hurt you,” his voice is quieter when he starts up again, a lot less angry, and Stiles shivers in his naked state without Derek’s body warmth on him. He seems so far away, not just on the other end of the bed; but on the other end of the room, of the apartment, of the building. “I know we’re both men, but I am a lot stronger than you. You are very thin. I have to be careful, but I hadn’t – I hadn’t known and you…”

He gets up, so forcefully and fast that it makes Stiles flinch from his spot on the bed, and crosses the room. He approaches his window, watching the sunset as the light spreads out across his tan skin. He’s still naked, and he doesn’t seem to care about that; just standing and staring, looking so incredibly upset while Stiles can only sit and watch and feel…awful. “I was there, that day. I managed to get there right near the end.”

Stiles knows which day he’s referring to. Without any shadow of a doubt. Even in spite of the very few things that Derek has had to say about it in the past, he’s certain that it’s come up yet again.

“And I got to get there and hold my youngest brother’s hand as he choked to death on ash and smoke.” He looks over his shoulder, meets Stiles’ shellshocked, wide eyes. “For a second, you were him.”

Stiles gets up. He crawls over the bed on legs like a newborn deer’s, useless and slow, and flops down onto the floor on his bare feet. He takes the ten steps he needs to get to Derek’s body, and as soon as he’s close enough, he’s wrapping his arms around him and gripping, hugging him tight against his body and hiding his face in Derek’s neck. “I’m sorry,” he says, miserably. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to – I just –“

“It’s okay,” Derek assures him, running his hand up and down Stiles’ back. “It’s okay, you didn’t know. It’s okay. I’m fine, now, it was just – just a moment.”

Stiles burrows deeper into him, as if he could bury his shame and regret in Derek’s skin. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think about it. I just…”

“I know. That’s why we talk about things before we do anything.” He kisses the top of Stiles’ head and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and hates that he did this. Of course Derek is right – he never could have possibly known that, since Derek tells him precisely nothing about that night with good reason; but he can’t stop thinking about it.

Stiles knows that Derek, for whatever reason, blames himself for that fire. He as good as thinks he’s the one who set the first match, poured the gasoline, locked the doors and barricaded the windows. And so having his hand around Stiles’ neck while Stiles clawed at it and choked and struggled must have been almost symbolic for him; his little brother’s death, at his hands, all over again.

“I didn’t mean to yell like that, baby, I am so sorry. I scared you.”

“You were right,” Stiles whimpers, and Derek sighs and kisses his head again.

“I know I can be tight-lipped sometimes,” he starts, and Stiles nods. “…but I have issues. It’s not fair to get angry with you for triggering them when you don’t know any better. But we really, really should have talked about that first. Okay?”

He pulls back, looks Stiles right in his face even as Stiles tries to avoid eye contact. “Yeah,” he nods, frowning and looking at the floor.

Derek puts both hands on Stiles’ face, and then his eyes drift down to Stiles’ throat and neck. He frowns, deep, and meets Stiles’ eyes. “Does it hurt?” He asks, voice very small.

“Yeah,” Stiles rasps. “It’s going to bruise.”

“I don’t know how to correctly or erotically choke someone,” he admits, stroking his fingers along Stiles’ neck and frowning with his eyes lasering into the skin, hunting for the hurts. “Don’t ask me that ever again. I mean it.”

“Okay. I won’t.” He promises, and then, nervously, “I love you.”

Derek meets his eyes and kisses him on the forehead. Slow, and gentle, and easy. “I love you,” he says back, no hesitation.

***

Stiles whips open his front door with a black cup in his hand, dressed in Hogwarts robes he and Scott found at a thrift store some two months ago, and there Derek is. He’s in a black sweater and dark jeans, hands in his pockets, and Stiles grins at him. “You,” he starts, pointing an incriminating finger at him, “are not in costume.”  
Derek’s response to this is a wry smile and a shrug, stepping inside around Stiles’ body and taking a good look around. It’s probably exactly what he had expected, because his face remains impassive as he takes in the entire scene.

Scott and Stiles had shut all the lights off, leaving them only in the purple and orange string lights Derek had bought for them so everyone is cast in a weird glow with shadows all over their faces. The smoke machine did the trick so well that they had to open the windows at one point, but it’s still unbelievably hard to see in here; like everyone has been chainsmoking inside for hours. It’s pretty crowded, but there’s still enough room to move, and the music is loud. Derek stands and says nothing, just slowly turns his eyes back to Stiles.

“Dude,” Scott appears out of nowhere, staggering out of the crowd dressed like Harry Potter and pointing his finger at Derek just like Stiles had done. “No costume? That’s a fucking party foul.”

“Party foul,” Stiles repeats very seriously, raising his eyebrows at Derek, who just stands there and accepts this with little to no reaction. As soon as the people around them catch wind of this, a bit of a frenzy starts. Within the span of ten seconds, an entire clump of people in the living room are chanting party foul, party foul, again and again, and Derek’s lips curve downwards.

He looks Stiles in the eyes. “I am too old to be here.”

Ignoring that, Stiles takes the can of PBR he gets handed from one of the members of the enraged mob. He reaches into his pocket and produces his house keys. Stabs into the bottom of the can, holds it out to Derek. “Shotgun this,” he says, and Derek frowns.

All the same, he takes it, and does as he’s told. Stiles watches with barely restrained glee, Derek’s throat bobbing as he downs the entire thing and the crowd around them goes wild. He finishes, scrunching the empty can up in his fist and shrugging. “You never told me you knew how to party,” Stiles says, and Derek shrugs again.

“If Scott is Harry Potter,” and he clearly is – he has the lightning bolt and a pair of dorky costume glasses on, along with matching Hogwarts robes himself. “…that must make you Ron.”

Stiles scoffs. “Uh, I’m Cedric Diggory?” He corrects, pulling his robe aside a bit to reveal his tie. “Note the colors. Amateur.”

“How terribly remiss of me,” he cracks, cocking his head to the side and appraising him up and down.

“This outfit is getting you hot, I can tell.”

“Oh, yeah. Six layers of sheer dork and nerd. Always gets me going.”

Stiles laughs and takes him by the hand, lacing their fingers together and dragging him off toward the snack table. They have spoken and seen each other since the whole choking incident, and everything is fine now – but Stiles still has the bruises around his neck and still feels horrible about it whenever he lets himself ruminate on it for too long. It was really mortifying for him along with six other different emotions, and he just kinda wants to forget about it, so he won’t bring it up again.

And aside, he learned his lesson.

“Are you hungry?” Stiles shouts over the music as they get closer to the snacks, inconveniently right next to where the music is blaring and a whole host of people are dancing. “We have all kinds of food!”

Derek nods, because he is always, always fucking hungry, and picks up a paper plate with cartoon ghosts all over it. He loads up on chips and pigs in a blanket and veggies with dip, while Stiles makes him a drink down the table. He knows what Derek likes to drink by now – mostly dark liquors with the slightest pinch of coke on top – and tops it off with a straw that has the face of a ghost on it. Once all that’s settled, Stiles gestures for him to come with him down the hall, away from the noise and the music, and Derek follows with his spoils, chewing already.

Stiles takes him to the furthest point of the house, where a couple is making out only a couple of feet away from them. Stiles hands him his drink and then drinks his own, slugging it down and giving him a bit of a smile. “Thanks for doing all this. It’s been badass so far.”

“I mostly just paid for it,” he admits around a mouthful of mini hot dog. “Lydia did the shopping.”

That gives Stiles some pause. He must give Derek a particularly surprised look, because he feels the need to elaborate further.

“She likes to plan parties,” he says by way of explanation, and Stiles scrunches his eyebrows together. He guesses he could see that…maybe?

“She could’ve come, in that case!”

“I knew you would think so and extended the invitation to her,” he swallows. “She politely declined.”

“Bah! She doesn’t know what she’s missing,” he drinks some more and so does Derek, and Stiles feels light and happy. It’s really incredible that Derek actually showed up to this shit, considering all the circumstances. First of all, he’s in a sea of post-grads all disillusioned and broke and getting drunk if only because it’s just something to do and he’s sticking out like a sore thumb. Second of all, he probably has a million other things he would rather be doing. And third of all, he probably has a million other things he probably should be doing.

But, Stiles asked him, and so he’s here. Stiles leans up and kisses him on the cheek, patting him on the head a couple of times. “You are the best boyfriend,” he says honestly, and Derek sort of grins and squints.

“You say that a lot. What, did you only date assholes before?”

“Uh, yeah,” he laughs, and realizes that he and Derek have never actually had the past-relationship conversation before. With a couple of drinks in them both, he figures now is as good a time as any. “Dudes who broke my limits and cheated on me and all that. You know how it is.”

Derek frowns and probably wants to know more, but Stiles isn’t really jumping at the chance to provide the information. His ex-boyfriends were all just…pieces of work. You don’t wind up on a kink dating website because you’re dating good people; let’s put it that way.

Changing the subject before Derek can ask anything else, Stiles says, “hey, you’re bisexual, right?”

Derek bites into a carrot and nods. “I guess.”

He guesses. Stiles makes a face in response to that, so Derek sort of smiles and shrugs again, looking down at his food a little bashfully. “So you like girls, too?”

“I do like girls, too.”

“So you’ve dated girls before.”

Derek looks at him for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, nodding. “A couple.”

“How many boys have you dated?”

“I feel suddenly like I’m being interrogated.”

“Just answer.”

“Uh…dated? Like, you and I dated?” He shrugs. “One. Two girls one boy. Lots of hookups, though.”

“Oh, same,” he agrees, nodding. “Who was the other girl? I mean I know the first one, but –“

“She was a very nice girl,” he interrupts before Stiles can say anything else, or put his foot in his mouth more than it already is. “And I mean, she was very nice.”

Stiles cocks his head to the side, and then he slowly nods as he thinks he starts to understand. “She didn’t want you to kink her out, huh?”

“Not at all. She was nice though.” He must already be tipsy enough, because he had shotgunned that beer and is now drinking a drink Stiles made extra, extra strong, because he opens up just a bit more than he would usually. “After what happened with my family, a nice girl was nice. And then the boyfriend was sort of short lived, but he was nice, as well.”

Stiles drinks, long and hard. “Do you think I’m nice?”

“You are absolutely not mean or cruel.”

“But am I nice?”

“You’re likeable and friendly.”

“But nice?”

Derek smiles, leaning his head back against the wall. “You’re kind,” he settles on, and Stiles will take it.

“I know,” he points to his tie again. “Observe the uniform. Speaking of – what’s your Hogwarts house?”

“Uh…” Derek puts his empty food plate down on the nearby flat surface. It’s a table that’s the only thing separating the two of them from the hetero couple nearly eating each other’s faces off. Both of them ignore that, focusing only on each other. “…hm.”

Stiles waits, blinking. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“I was more of a Lord of the Rings kid.”

“As if the two are mutually exclusive!” He bursts out, and then starts rubbing his temples. “We’re doing this right now.”

“Okay.” Derek is so agreeable, for Stiles, it’s insane. Anyone else, he would be storming off or rolling his eyes and telling them to fuck off – but for Stiles, he stands and smiles.

“What you have to understand is that there is absolutely no personality theory in the Hogwarts houses. It’s a bunch of garbage. If you take it seriously, you’re a god damn nerd.”

Derek looks him up and down. “Says you.”

Ignoring that entirely, Stiles goes forward. “That being said, it is fun, and you should know what yours is.”

“So, what are they again?” Derek asks, leaning against the wall all the way and sipping his drink, staring down the other end of the hallway where Scott can clearly be seen waving a stick he found in the backyard around as if it’s an actual wand. He butchers the pronunciation of a spell, and Derek snorts.

“Ravenclaw, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Gryffindor.”

“Which one is the evil one again?”

“The evil –“ Stiles gapes. “None of them, you fucking elf fucker.”

“Elf fucker?” Derek is incredulous.

“Slytherin, to answer your bullshit question.”

“That’s me.”

Stiles is about to hit him with the wrong, incorrect, completely false, but then he thinks about it for a moment. He considers Derek, taking his chin in his hand and observing him, up and down. He thinks about Derek’s obsession with making the most money, being on top all the time. He thinks about Derek’s drive to be successful even in the face of all the things that stand in his way, even though it’s dangerous and stupid and could land him in prison. How hard it’s been for his father or any other police officers to catch him in the act while he’s sitting here making millions upon millions of dollars, laundering it so well into a side business that no one can even fucking tell what it is he’s actually up to.

“Well, okay.” Stiles blinks, nodding his head. “I see it.”

“Why do you think you’re in this one?” He gestures up and down to Stiles’ costume, and Stiles adjusts his tie.

“I think I’m Slytherin some days and Hufflepuff other days. I mean, I’m ambitious, but up to a certain point,” he grins, shrugging his shoulders. “I also like to have fun and my family and friends come above most things.”

Derek nods his head, agreeing. “I could see that.”

The conversation goes on like that for another ten or so minutes, the couple still making out and moaning and this that and the other thing over Stiles and Derek’s heads. At one point, Derek looks down the hall toward the main party again, and catches the eyes of a girl Stiles can’t say he’s ever seen before.

She’s got long dark hair, a steady gaze, and she meets Derek’s eyes right back. Derek sort of goes still for a moment, the grip on his drink going intense, and then he looks away and faces Stiles again, like nothing had happened. Stiles trails his eyes back down the hall to where the girl is still standing, staring at them and frowning, and then she turns and walks away.

Derek is still and quiet, pointedly averting his gaze. Stiles has to ask. “You know her?”

“Do you?” He fires back, and Stiles cocks his head to the side.

“No. She’s probably a friend of a friend. I’ve never seen her before,” he gives Derek a firm look. “You evidently have.”

Derek drinks his drink, swallows. He takes his time answering, but when he does, his voice is calculated and low. “She’s an old family friend,” he settles on, and he gives Stiles this look like he’s daring him to argue it.

An old family friend. Considering Derek’s family…well.

“So she’s a felon?” He demands, eyebrows going up into his hairline. He looks down the hall to see if he can spot her again, but he can’t – it’s fine, because her image is burned into his head. She was dressed as a cat, black dress, thigh highs, and a little drawn on nose with two ears up top. It doesn’t immediately call to mind drug trafficker, but what the hell else could she be? “Well, god damn. Who else in this town is a bad egg?”

Derek doesn’t seem amused by this line of conversation. Frankly, he seems agitated and on edge. It’s as if the term friend, his word and not Stiles’, had been generous. Very, very generous, where that girl is concerned.

Normally when it came to things like these, Stiles would just drop it, because he has to. It’s part of the agreement of their relationship, to learn to let certain mysteries go not just for Derek’s sake, but for his own, as well. But he’s had a lot to drink, and this whole secretive bullshit is starting to grate underneath his skin, and he has to fucking know. “How do you know her?”

“I don’t, not really,” he says, evasive as he ever is. “I know of her.”

“Of her.”

“Yeah, I know her name and who she is, but we don’t go out for a round of golf every fucking Sunday. Jesus, Stiles.”

“But she’s an old family friend.”

Derek mutters something under his breath that sounds remarkably upset and annoyed, gritting his teeth and running a hand through his hair. “You think mine is the only family in town?”

Stiles blinks at him. Honestly, he had thought that. At least, in terms of the whole crime family thing. How many crime families does a single city need, after all? Derek palms his face and looks at his feet, like he’s very uncomfortable and wants the subject changed immediately, and Stiles stares at him.

And what the fuck is a member of the opposite crime family in Beacon Hills doing at Stiles’ god damn Halloween party? Coincidence? Happenstance?

That’s a question Stiles will be forced to linger on. As he’s leaning forward to press Derek for more information, red and blue lights start flashing in through the front windows of the house, lighting every thing up all bright and startling. The music gets turned down almost instantaneously, and someone shouts cops!! at the top of their lungs.

Stiles frowns, watching people scatter left and right, He tosses his half empty cup to the side and charges ahead down the hall toward the front room, where people are scurrying around like mice about to get their heads chopped off. People stream out the back door, out the kitchen door, and even upstairs to potentially try and heft themselves out the back window, most likely.

He goes to the front window, peers outside, and glowers. “God dammit,” he hisses, and feels Derek’s presence right beside him. “It’s my fucking dad.”

And there he is, climbing out of a Sheriff’s cruiser and looking way too pleased to be here. He’s been thrilled at the prospect of breaking up loud parties at Stiles’ house and apartment ever since he could, showing up like someone tipped him off already right when things were starting to get good. Now that he’s a grown adult, it’s starting to get a little more than annoying.

“Unfortunately, that’s my cue to leave,” Derek says when Stiles straightens up, pouting and feeling way too fucking annoyed for his own good. Derek kisses him on the lips, quick and chaste, and runs a hand through Stiles’ unruly hair. “Good party. You know where to find me.”

He ducks away, vanishing out into the crowd, and in milliseconds, is completely gone. Stiles blinks after him and thinks about what he said about being a ghost. It must be true. Stiles stands and rubs his hand over his forehead, spots Scott leaning over the couch like he’s ten steps away from puking while Kira feeds him water, and huffs.

Squaring his shoulders, he moves to open up his front door to greet his father and go through the rigmarole of noise complaint, unruly party, underaged drinking possible, and on and on and on.

***

Stiles goes out to Wal Mart late on a Wednesday night because he ran out of fish food for Satchmo. Even though he was a gift to Derek, Stiles mostly shoulders the responsibility of taking care of him out of understanding that Derek is incredibly busy and doesn’t really have the time for a pet; so Stiles is more than happy to step in and have Satchmo mostly live in his bedroom. He has a tank here with a filter and lots of happy decorations, and Stiles is vigilant about cleaning it. Satchmo has got a pretty good life, all things considered.  
Still, Stiles forgot he was out of food and is now here at midnight, perusing the pet aisle among the scum of society until coming up with the kind of food he always gets. He buys three containers for good measure, rustling out into the parking lot again with his bag in the crisp night air. It’s a full moon tonight, he notes, staring up at the big white orb in the sky and checking his phone out of old habit.

As he’s getting closer to his car, moving along the near empty lot with a yawn, he hears the sound of a car door slamming. He ignores it, trucking forward.

Then, “excuse me?”

And Stiles turns, phone in hand. There’s the silhouette of a woman standing next to a black SUV, and Stiles can’t make out her face – they’re too far from the nearest working street light for him to make out any clear details. “Hi,” she says, her voice smooth. “Can you help me with something?”

“Sure,” Stiles agrees, taking a step forward in her direction. She doesn’t move toward him; just stays put, shadowed out.

“My dog got underneath my car, and he won’t come out,” she says, pointing down below her huge car with a single finger. Stiles follows her pointing finger and raises her eyebrows. “It’s a chihuahua. He’s pretty skittish. And my arms just aren’t long enough to reach him and grab him.”

“I can get him,” Stiles says easily without even taking the time to really consider it. He always ha the time to help a small critter in need, after all. He pockets his phone as he bridges the distance between them more and more, sliding it into the back of his jeans. “Is he a biter?”

“A little bit,” she admits, an edge to her tone.

“A couple nips won’t kill me.” He closes in on her and the car, and more of her features become clear. She’s average height and very pretty – she’s got long blonde hair and a lipstick smothered grin on her face, cocking her head to the side as he gets closer. He puts his bag of fish food down on the ground and gets on his knees beside it.

“Thank you so much,” the woman says, and Stiles nods absentmindedly.

“No problem.” He peers underneath the car and scans all around, furrowing his brow the longer he looks. “You know, I don’t think he’s –“

A sharp, quick blow to his head with something firm and heavy disorients him – and that’s not what knocks him out. He has this split second of confusion and shock before his head hits the pavement, and he hits it very, very hard. And that’s what knocks him out, cold.


	11. Please use discretion.

Stiles blinks awake, and his mouth is dry. He groans a bit at a pain he can’t feel just yet, still lost in the realm of sleep, and then he feels it. It’s a deep throb on the back of his head, and it feels like someone is pounding into it with a nail and hammer. His instant reaction to this is to try and reach his hand up to prod at the wound and find out if he’s bleeding or not, but he can’t.

His hands are tied behind his back, he finds, and the events that lead him here all come screaming back to him. Wal Mart, and the parking lot, and the woman with the chihuahua that might not actually have existed in the first place, and the blow to his head. He looks around, scanning quickly and a bit restlessly, struggling against the duct tape holding his wrists behind his back as he takes in his surroundings.

He's in a pristinely white room. Not white like an asylum – and not empty. There’s a bed with white sheets, white curtains on a wide window leading out onto a very nice looking upper balcony, and white carpeting under his body. He’s in someone’s bedroom. He licks his lips and tries again to escape his bindings, but there’s no use. He’s sitting on the floor in the corner, by a bedside table with an alarm clock and a glass of water and nothing else. There’s nothing around that he can see for him to use to try and cut out of the tape, and panic starts to set in.

It gets worse when the bedroom door opens, and in steps the same woman who had tricked him here in the first place. She walks inside, wearing big black boots and a shirt so tight he can practically see through it underneath a try-hard leather jacket, leering at him like he’s some little raccoon she managed to catch in one of her traps out in the woods. It’s fitting. That’s almost exactly how he feels. “Comfortable?” She asks, her demeanor and voice completely different to how she had spoken to him last night.

She tricked him. She played him out like a fucking idiot, and Stiles just…went for it. How was he supposed to know any better, he reasons to himself. How could he have ever seen this coming?

Stiles bites his tongue and tries to keep the hysteria at bay. He doesn’t know what this woman wants to do with him, but he’s the son of the Sheriff. If he goes missing, there’s a search party out for him already even if it’s just in the form of his father and one other deputy, possibly a K9. Beyond that, he has no reason to believe this woman is going to kill him. But then, he can’t fathom a reason he’s been taken in the first place.

“This isn’t usually how I like my bondage,” he says, trying his hardest to keep his tone care free and light. “But I guess it does the trick.”

She steps closer to him, tucking a long strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. “Sorry about smashing your head in last night,” she says, casual as all get out. She walks over to the bedside table right next to where Stiles is sitting on the ground, and Stiles has to physically resist backing away from her on instinct. He can’t appear too scared. She’ll feed off of that. She picks up the water glass there and then slowly squats down, so her and Stiles are at eye level. “Thirsty?”

Stiles is. He’s in no place to be denying water at this point, because who knows when the next time he’ll be offered anything to drink will be? He nods, feeling small and pathetic, and she slowly tips the glass toward his lips for him to sip.

He drinks, and drinks, until the entire glass is empty. When he’s done, she sets the glass back down on the table with a hard clink, nearly making Stiles jump. She watches his reaction like a hawk, a slow, feral grin spreading across her face. “You are very adorable,” she says, cocking her head to the side and looking at him from top to bottom. “I guess I understand what he sees in you.”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Stiles’ heart sinks. Oh, he thinks, as his breath catches in his throat and she stands back up to her full height right in front of him. Oh, this is about Derek. This isn’t some crazy woman who picked him up off the street to do god knows what to him – this isn’t some random attack or a crazy kidnapping with no rhyme or reason. This is calculated. This was planned.

“Please tell me you’re not holding me for ransom money from Derek,” he says, voice low and annoyed. When her smile only grows wider, he squeezes his eyes shut and curses the literal day that he was fucking born. “Oh, god dammit.”

“It was hard to get you to a place where I could get my hands on you,” she says, folding her arms over her chest and appraising him like a prize she won at the carnival. “He keeps you on a very tight leash.”

“He’s going to kill you,” he snaps, again trying to break out of his tape. “You realize that, right?” While there a lot of things Stiles might not know about Derek, there is one thing he is fairly certain of – you hurt someone he loves, and it’s game over for you. And this woman has just taken hostage Derek’s favorite person on planet earth. God only knows what Derek is going to do to her when he gets the chance, but Stiles can only assume it will not be pretty.

She shrugs. “He’s tried that already, sweetheart. Didn’t work out so well, because as you can see, I’m still pretty.”

Stiles gapes at her for a moment, mouth hanging open. “Who are you?” He demands, eyes big in his head.

“My name is Kate Argent,” she tells him, leaning down to give him three hard pats on the top of his head, close enough to his wound that it hurts and he winces and cries out a bit, trying to dodge away from her hand. “And you’re my favorite little bargaining chip. Derek has always had a problem with caring about people, he always cares too much, all it ever does is land him in trouble,” she walks away, pacing across the floor toward the window. Stiles wonders if she knows how stupid it is to keep a hostage in a room with a window, or if she really thinks she’s that invincible that it doesn’t even matter. He’s leaning towards the latter, just from how she carries herself. “And he has that complex, where he thinks he’s so different from the rest of us. The rest of us are soulless, and he’s the fucking martyr who actually has a heart, so he must be better than us.” She snorts, shaking her head as she turns over her shoulder to look at Stiles once again. “Well, look where it got him, and look where it got you.”

Stiles swallows.

“You’d think he would’ve learned his lesson the first time about keeping people too close to him,” she turns in just such a way that Stiles can see she has a gun on her hip, hidden underneath the leather jacket she’s sporting, and his heart sinks even deeper. “But, then again, he was so young back then. Maybe I need to drive the point home one last time.”

A couple of pieces fall into place for Stiles, then, just looking at her face and demeanor and the room he’s in. The things that she’s saying. How she’s acting like she knows Derek personally, when Stiles is certain that the name of a person this fucking crazy would have come up before if she really did know him. He opens his mouth and sucks in a deep breath, hoping to god that he’s wrong, but deep down, knowing that he isn’t. “You’re the…” he starts, and then he has to start again when his voice cracks. “…you killed Derek’s family. You lit the Hale fire.”

Kate turns and looks him dead in the eyes. Slowly, one shoulder lifts right along with a corner of her lips, as though she thinks it’s funny. “Now, that was never proven.”

This is without a doubt the most terrified Stiles has ever been in his life. He has been kidnapped and tied up by the woman who killed the entirety of Derek’s family some ten years ago, and she’s standing there looking at him like he’s about to be added to the list of people she’s taken away from Derek in the name of money, or power, or whatever the hell influences her in the first place.

She may kill him. If only just to get to Derek one more time, she might just fucking kill him.

“Get that fucking wounded puppy look off your face, you’re useless to me dead,” she says this to be assuring, but it only makes Stiles ten times more afraid, squirming in his place and breathing erratically through his nose. There are much, much worse things than death that a person can do to another. Especially in this type of a situation.

Someone calls Kate’s name from down the hallway, and Stiles and her both jerk their head in the direction of the door – Stiles anxiously, and Kate passively. She looks at him once more with that eerie smile of hers, like a deranged escapee from Eichen House, and moves quickly to open the door. “There you are,” she says, gesturing her arm for whoever it is to come down the hall and into this room. “I’ve been waiting for you to get started.”

The footsteps come closer, and Kate backs out of the doorway to make room. In comes a familiar face, and Stiles stares at her like she’s grown ten heads.

It’s the girl from his Halloween party. The one that Derek had called an old family friend. They lock eyes, and she immediately comes to a screeching halt, stopping dead in her tracks as her eyes go big in her head. She stares at him for three long seconds, lips parted, and then she slowly turns to Kate, an unreadable expression on her face. “You didn’t,” she says, and it almost sounds like she’s begging. “Kate, you didn’t.”

“Allison, I did,” she returns with a gleeful jump to her tone, sweeping across the floor back to where Stiles is sitting. He tries to move out of her reach, dive out of the way, curl into himself, but it’s no use. She gets her hands on his upper arm and hefts him up by it, hauling him onto his feet and dragging him across the room. She wraps one arm around his body and the other hand comes up to stroke at his hair, again aggravating the head wound he has there. “I got my hands on Derek Hale’s favorite thing. You know,” she taps Stiles on the tip of his nose, and he flinches and thinks about spitting in her face. “I wonder how much you’re worth to him.”

Allison swallows, looking between Kate and Stiles again and again. “I’ve told you,” she begins, voice slow and precise, almost cautious. Like she’s afraid of saying the wrong thing and setting Kate off. “…he has no stake in any of this. He doesn’t know –“

“I don’t care if he’s the newborn Christ,” she snaps, gripping onto Stiles more tightly like she’s afraid of having him taken away. “He’s a million dollar meal card, do you realize that?”

“This isn’t just about pissing off Derek fucking Hale,” Allison snaps, stepping forward while Stiles valiantly tries to make a break for it. It mostly goes unnoticed by both women – Kate just pulls him back hard against her body and Allison acts like she didn’t even see it happen. “This is the Sheriff’s son. There’s two groups of people who will come after you for this, Kate, God, did you even think about that? And you brought him to our house!”

“This will all be over very soon,” she promises, leaning her face in close to Stiles’ like she intends to kiss him. Stiles jerks back violently, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process, and Kate just grins at him like he’s done something funny for her. “You think I intend to have him for more than a day? You forget that I know how to play Derek like a fiddle. Twenty-four hours won’t even pass, and I’ll have my money, Allison.”

Allison looks resigned. She gives Stiles a very, very apologetic look, as if a simple look could make up for the fact that she’s doing absolutely nothing to fucking help him, nothing whatsoever at all. Then again, Stiles has to wonder if there even is anything Allison could do to help him. If she tried to rebel against Kate, things could only get worse. For both of them.

“All the things you’ve ever done, Aunt Kate,” she starts, shaking her head from side to side. “This is the most selfish and insane of them all.”

“Not quite,” she says, turning her head to wink at Stiles like they’re in on some private little joke. And Stiles knows, right then, that Allison doesn’t know what Kate has done. She doesn’t know her Aunt burned an entire house full of people alive. If she did, she might have been long gone before any of this could have happened.

Two men appear, bustling through the door with guns strapped to their hips. One of them is carrying a fairly big object in his hand, wrapped up in a white linen napkin and carried out away from him as if he’s nervous about just waving whatever it is around. Kate jumps when she sees them, nearly squealing with joy, and Allison takes a step back and palms her forehead. Looks at Stiles and purses her lips, and then down at the ground. She looks like she’s trying to think her way out of it.

Stiles has tried a dozen times, now. He doesn’t think Allison is going to fare much better.

“Now we can start,” Kate caws, gesturing the men inside and directing them to go into her walk-in closet across the way. “Oh, this is exciting. Now I know for you, handsome, it might not seem that way,” she takes him by the arm again and starts pulling him off to follow the men into the closet, as the light gets flicked on and they start rearranging some furniture within. “But trust me. The faster we get this over with, the better it’ll all be. Fast and painful, how’s that?”

Stiles resists her push as soon as the word painful comes out of her mouth, but she shoves him forward harshly so he nearly face plants into the carpeting. “Please don’t hurt me,” he begs – no longer above that, not now. There is no place for pride or snark or sarcasm, here.

She takes his arm again and hauls him into the closet, herding him along toward a metal table and a single chair where the men are standing and waiting for them. He digs his feet into the marble floors of the closet as soon as they’re inside, and his sneakers squeak and squeal as he tries his hardest, his level best, to get out of this. “Please don’t – please don’t do anything to me. Derek will pay, he will, you don’t have to –“

“Ten minutes ago your tune was about how he’s going to kill me,” she reminds him coldly, sitting him down on the metal chair. Once he’s down, he tries to leap back out of it and make another run for it, but he’s held down by much stronger, firmer hands this time – and he looks up into the ice blue eyes of a very cruel and heartless looking man. “And of course he’s going to pay me. That’s not a question. You see, right now? He probably has taken note of the fact that his favorite toy has gone missing,” she leans over the table with her hands on the edge, smirking at him as her hair falls over her shoulder. “You didn’t show up for work. You never even got home last night. And that car that sits on your block watching your house to make sure I can’t get anywhere near you…” Stiles blinks. He hadn’t known that. “…called Derek and told him that they didn’t know where you were, but there are possibilities. I don’t need possibilities. I’d like for him to know who’s got his pet.”

A smooth hand, gentle and rough at the same time, reaches out to run through his hair. She smiles at him, benign and soft, and then she grips. Stiles cries out a bit, and he’s sure that the wound on his head may still be bleeding. “The sooner he knows how much danger you’re in, the sooner I get my money.”

She lets him go and Stiles winces, genuine terror pumping through his veins. He didn’t know Derek had someone tailing him, but now that it’s out there, he thinks that Derek has known for some time that Kate has had her eye on Stiles in specific. He remembers that phone conversation he’d had that night in New York on the balcony as one of Kate’s goonies cuts his hands free of the duct tape and then immediately grabs at his hands so he can’t do anything smart. How naïve he had been, to not realize it had been about Kate.

To not realize it had been about him. And Derek didn’t tell him. It would’ve been nice to fucking know that a murderous bitch was on his trail, just for his own fucking reference. Even though he can imagine what Derek had been thinking by not telling Stiles anything, that Derek had thought it would be best if Stiles lived in blissful ignorance and never knew the dark, seedy underbelly of what was going on behind the curtain, he can’t help but think Derek misjudged the situation.

That he made a huge mistake. Because Stiles is here now, and they want to hurt him.

They hold him down, one arm behind his back held by one guy and the other hand held out on the table by his wrist, firm to the point where Stiles couldn’t move even if he tried his absolute hardest. Kate picks up the object the men had brought in with them, pulling its cloth off to reveal a cleaver so shiny it reflects Stiles almost perfectly when he looks at it.

Stiles jerks, frantic, kicking his feet and angling his body away. It’s no use. He can’t get any farther away from the sharp object than he already is, and he makes a pained, desperate noise in the back of his throat.

“You and Derek have been together for some time, huh?” She asks, turning the knife this way and that with a malicious glint in her eyes. Stiles doesn’t answer her, not right away; he just feels terrified tears welling up in his eyes and shakes his head as if he can somehow deny it to the point where it just stops happening. It can’t be happening. This cannot be happening to him. “How long?”

Stiles says nothing, keeping his eyes trained on the knife. Kate lashes out almost instantly, slapping him across the face hard enough that he sees stars for a moment. That certainly doesn’t help with his head wound, and he starts thinking he could be concussed. Stiles takes the hint anyway, and answers the question. “Eight months,” he says, frantic. “We’ve been – eight months. He loves me. He’ll give you anything you want, you don’t need to –“

“Wow, eight months,” she muses, resting the tip of her finger against the blade of the knife. “You think he’s going to ask you to marry him?”

“I –“ he chokes off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know, please.”

She clucks her tongue and steps closer to him, so Stiles flinches back on instinct even when he has nowhere else to go. “I think he will.” She appraises the hand laid out for her. Stiles’ left. She makes a gesture with her head, and then she says, “give me the ring finger.”

The man holding his wrist down forces it back, across the table, and then arranges his fingers the way Kate seems to want them to be. He sets it up so that his hand isn’t even really on the table anymore; all of his fingers except one dangling off the edge, leaving only the ring finger up on the table top, singled out.

And then, Stiles gets it. He gets it pretty much immediately at that point.

“Come on,” he says, desperate, looking up to meet Kate’s eyes as if he thinks that’ll make her have any mercy on him whatsoever. “Come on, you’re not serious. You’re – you’re not fucking serious, come on!”

“I can’t have the whole hand up there,” she argues calmly. “Unless you want two more of your fingers gone. That can be arranged.”

Stiles tries to move. He tries to pull away. He tries to shake out of his chair and he tries to ask the men in the room to help him, to stop her, but it’s no use. His fate here has already been decided. “You don’t have to do this, come on,” he pleads, lower lip trembling. Kate lifts the cleaver in the air, gets a good grip on it, and then swings it.

Stiles screams, jerking up in his seat so hard he nearly breaks the thing he’s sure of it. But Kate hasn’t cut it off yet – she was just testing it. She grins at him, all her teeth, and then she slowly aims it again. She holds it an inch or two above the base of the finger, and then two inches, three, testing it again and again to make sure she’s got it in the right spot. Stiles watches this like it’s happening to somebody else. Like it’s a movie. He detaches from reality for a moment, shaking his head and begging.

She looks him in the eye. “Would you like a one, two, three?”

Stiles gapes at her, tears streaming down his face.

“One,” she says, and then swings.

***

There has never been a time where Stiles became more aware of how serious what Derek is involved in is until this very moment. He knew always that it was bad, but the lack of details afforded way too much to his imagination. He might have imagined it as softer, much softer than it ever was. Like the way it is in the movies, where everything is sugarcoated and something seems incredibly sexy or cool about it.  
This is not like the movies. The shadowcurtain has been taken away, and Stiles is faced with the entire picture from top to bottom, and he’s afraid. It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

He’s been writhing around on the floor for what feels like hours but has to only be two minutes. The finger came off, it sure as shit did, and Kate immediately had it boxed up and sent it off and away with a flourish, laughing maniacally the entire time while Stiles screamed and screamed and bled all over her marble floors and her metal table and himself.

No wonder she switched them from her carpeted bedroom into here. It would’ve been a bloody, incriminating mess, otherwise.

Allison has got him. He screams a bit more and curls in on himself, trying to get away from her hands as best as he can, but she’s shh’ing him. She grabs hold of Stiles’ wrist where he’s got it pinned up against his chest, curled and protected, and tugs at it. Stiles screams again, this one more drawn out because it hurts so bad to have it out in the open, the wound exposed, the - …it’s not a wound. It’s…

He doesn’t have a finger anymore. It’s not a cut. A scrape. A burn. He had his finger cut off. He’s missing a finger. It –

“Let me wrap it,” Allison is saying frantically, pulling Stiles’ body so that he half drapes over her lap where she’s sitting criss cross on the floor beside him. She’s sitting in a small puddle of his blood, but she doesn’t seem to care. She is wearing black, after all. She puts his head in her lap and lifts his wrist up. “Keep it in the air,” she commands, firm and sure. “We need to slow the bleeding. Shh, I know it hurts, I know.”

Stiles’ screams subside into long, drawn out pathetic little mewls of pain. He cries into Allison’s leg as she wraps what’s left of his finger up in gauze, shaking her head the entire time and furrowing her brow like she can’t believe this has happened. Stiles curls into himself and stares blankly out at the wall, where Kate’s shoes are all lined up, nice and pretty. He wants to run his other, good hand in some of the blood he left on her floor and drag it all over her clothes and nice things, soiling all of it, ruining it.

But it couldn’t come close, not at all, to what she’s done to him. For money. For money.

“I am sorry this happened to you,” Allison says, gently poking at Stiles’ head wound next so Stiles winces and tries to move away from her fingers. “But, hey, listen – you know what’s gonna happen? Derek is going to get that finger, and he’s going to pay the money, and you’re gonna go home. It’s over so soon. You’ll be at the hospital before you know it. And there’s…there’s prosthetics,” she says, like this is any help to him whatsoever. “It wasn’t a very important, uh…you’re right handed, right?”

Stiles doesn’t dignify that with an answer. He doesn’t very much feel like talking, not right now. Even if he did, he’s been screaming so long his voice is likely cut to shit anyway.

“She won’t hurt you anymore,” Allison promises, putting her hand on Stiles’ cheek. “She doesn’t want to incur Derek’s wrath too badly, otherwise she’ll get the money and be too dead to spend it.”

Stiles blinks his eyes. He just wants to go to sleep. He doesn’t want to be awake anymore for all the pain and the waiting, he just wants to go to sleep. His eyes start to drift closed, and he allows it, sinking into what could hopefully be dreamlessness…

Allison gently slaps his cheek a couple of times. “Hey, no. You have to stay awake. Your head is in pretty bad shape, it might not be…okay.”

Stiles groans. He knows that his head is not okay. He also knows that he’s losing too much blood, even with Allison’s attempts at first aid. He’s lying on the floor in a rich woman’s closet bleeding out from a missing limb and his head is throbbing and there’s a certifiable stranger carding her fingers through his hair as some mockery of comfort.

And it’s all because of Derek. Whenever Derek would say that he was a dangerous person or that Stiles should never truly feel safe with him, Stiles always just chalked it up to his tendency and proclivity for self-flagellation and all-around self-hatred. Never in his wildest imaginations did he think that something like this could happen. He hadn’t thought that this is what Derek had meant, all this time.

Stiles coughs a bit and it hurts his body to do so, so he winces immediately after the fact as his hand starts shaking. It’s in so much pain he wishes he could chop the entire fucking thing off, but then that wouldn’t help very much. Allison picks his hand up and observes his finger, how the blood has seeped entirely through the gauze so it’s nothing but a wet, sopped completely through, disgusting mess that’s doing next to nothing to help him.

She frowns. “You’re losing too much blood,” she says quietly, as if Stiles needs to be told this.

Instead of giving that a direct answer, Stiles changes trajectories. He asks, “why are you helping me?” In a low rasp, and his earlier assumption that his voice would be completely ruined from screaming for so long has turned out to be accurate. “You’re Kate’s family. Shouldn’t you –“

“First of all, Kate hasn’t been my family for some time,” and her tone is clipped but serious, an intense set to her jaw as she speaks but doesn’t meet Stiles’ eyes. “And second of all, being nice to you is beneficial to me.”

Stiles would ask, but he doesn’t need to. He’s already had this same conversation with Erica, after all. It would appear that the general consensus among the criminally inclined in this city is that Stiles is a point of leverage for all of them; hurt him to get to Derek, be nice to him for Derek’s favor, become his friend to get closer to Derek. On and on and on.

The more Stiles thinks about it, the more afraid he is to think of how much power other people have over Derek simply because he’s with Stiles. No one should be able to be that swayed emotionally by another person, but Derek just…he has fucked up.

It’s dangerous doing what he does, to care about something.

Stiles doesn’t know how long he lies there on the floor with Allison, but he knows it’s too long. It’s way too long. He should be in an ambulance or being air lifted out of here, because he’s going to die. He gets this feeling from out of nowhere that he’s certain, he’s sure, he is going to fucking die here. He thinks of Derek receiving that finger from a messenger, opening up the box and seeing it and – and what his reaction would be.

He cannot imagine it. This entire thing is just so fucked up.

It only gets more fucked up when Kate comes back into the room. Allison sort of tightens her hold on Stiles as if to protect him, which Stiles appreciates, but it’s no use either way. Kate crosses the room with harsh stomps of her boots, reaching her arms out and grabbing Stiles away from Allison with harsh hands.

Stiles hisses in pain at the jostling, and then even more when Kate bodily tosses him down onto the ground several feet away, so he hits his head on the carpeting of the main bedroom and nearly blacks out then and there.

But Kate gets on top of him. She straddles him, grabbing at his face so hard her fingernails dig into his cheek, and forces him to look at her. She leans down, a terrifying expression on her face. “Guess what?” She hisses, and Stiles tries his hardest to get away from her, his hardest to do something about this, but he can’t. He’s too weak, now. “Derek hasn’t sent the money. So my question to you is – what do you think I should cut off next?”

Stiles lies there staring at her. He almost doesn’t believe it. He can’t possibly believe that. There’s no way – there’s no way…

Why hasn’t Derek just paid her the fucking money? Is his pride so big? Is he that stupid? Does he think that the finger was just something to trick him with?

Is it because he…doesn’t want to pay the money?

“Your tongue would be nice,” Kate goes on, and Stiles whines and tries to reach up with his good hand to push her away. Kate mostly just dodges out of the way of it, cocking her head to the side as she looks him up and down as much as she can in their position. “But then again, maybe he doesn’t care about you as much as I thought he did.”

“Stop,” Stiles asks weakly, voice small and pathetic.

“Well, what am I supposed to think?” She taunts, and then without warning, hits him across the face. It’s a backhand, and it’s a good one – Stiles’ head goes all the way to one side and he tastes blood in his mouth, but he can’t even vocalize the pain anymore. He’s in so much, everywhere, that it almost doesn’t matter.

“Kate,” Allison warns from somewhere behind them, and Kate doesn’t listen.

“I want my fucking money, and I took his stupid little faggot and went through all this god damn trouble, and now it turns out – you’re fucking worthless.” She hits him again, and this time Allison gets up on her feet and walks to them, her footsteps sounding distant and far away in Stiles’ ears.

“You’re going to kill him,” she accuses, voice a little hysterical.

“What does it matter?” Kate says back, and then her hands are off of Stiles completely. She climbs off of his body, affording Stiles the space to turn away, towards the wall. He curls into himself, weak and small and hurt all over, and coughs some blood out from his throat. It stains a spot on Kate’s pristine white carpet. “I should’ve fucking got one of the sisters instead,” she grouses, and Stiles thinks at this moment he can only agree.

That’s what she should’ve done. Apparently, Stiles isn’t worth the money to Derek. Maybe he’s known that, all along. He’s not thinking clearly.

Time moves in bursts that Stiles can’t keep track off. He knows that when Kate and Allison start arguing a bit more aggressively, he doesn’t move the entire time. He just lies there and blinks and thinks about how he’s going to die here, so nothing really matters. It just doesn’t matter anymore. He never should’ve gotten involved with Derek, he should’ve known better, but he…he was stupid.

Allison’s hands are on him again and she’s caressing him gently, touching his face and his hair and his chest in these little rubbing motions that feel good. Stiles leans into her, even though maybe he shouldn’t trust her, because it’s the only source of comfort he’s got right now. And he doesn’t want to die all alone. “Don’t listen to her,” she whispers, low in Stiles’ ear. He knows Kate is still in the room, but he isn’t sure where.

More time goes by. Stiles is just starting to fade out of consciousness for what he honestly thinks could be the ultimate and final time, huddled here on the ground with a certifiable stranger’s hands all over him…when Allison’s fingers suddenly go tight on his body.

There’s the distinct sound of a scuffle from downstairs. Raised voices, a door banging open so hard it rattles the big window in Kate’s bedroom, and then the obvious and clear firework-familiar sound of gunshots. Allison’s lips part when Stiles looks up at her, and then she meets his eyes and frowns. “Derek is here,” she says, and she sounds certain.

There’s this split second of time where Allison and Kate meet each other’s eyes over Stiles’ body. While Stiles is stuck wondering how Allison could possibly know and tell that that’s Derek without a doubt – the way he fires a gun? His footsteps? His voice? - they seem to have a silent conversation. The gunshots get louder, closer, and someone that sounds eerily like Erica shouts unintelligible muffled nonsense.

Allison moves at the same time Kate does. Kate reaches onto her hip and pulls her handgun out, wielding it in both hands; but Allison shoots it out of them. She aims, fires, and in seconds, Kate is screaming in pain and her gun is halfway across the room.

A look of betrayal crosses her face along with the pain, but it’s quickly replaced by rage. Unfiltered, unbridled. She advances on Allison and Stiles with a purely murderous glint in her eyes, screaming, “you fucking bitch –“

Allison shoots her in the leg, and Kate goes down. Stiles watches all this with a sort of detached interest, barely online enough to fully register what it is that’s even happening. Kate is crying and bleeding all over the place and trying to crawl over the carpeting to her gun, leaving long trails of the stuff in her wake. Allison stands up and leaves Stiles alone in his corner, walking across the room barefoot and not minding it when she steps in a bloody patch of carpet.

She stands in front of Kate’s path, kicking the gun farther away across the room. Kate looks up at her, tears streaming down her face – but she still smiles. It’s this sadistic, insane thing. Something that will be in Stiles’ nightmares for months to come if he ever manages to make it out of this, he’s sure of it.

“Aren’t you going to kill me?” She asks, sounding somewhat gleeful about it.

Allison looks at her as though she’s some tiny little bug she wants to squash underneath the heel of her foot. “I think I’ll let Derek take care of that.” Something about that statement has the smile slipping clean off of Kate’s face. She crawls away from Allison, trying to heft herself up onto her legs to no avail. Any pressure she puts on the shot calf has her doubling over in pain, back onto the ground.

She makes a very valiant effort for escaping, Stiles has to give her that. She makes it so that she’s out of Stiles’ eyeline, at least, before the door to Stiles’ prison and potential coffin is being opened up with a harsh bang against the opposite wall.

Stiles sees a familiar pair of shoes, first, from his angle. They come towards him quickly, while three other pairs of feet start combing the rest of the room, taking in the scene, approaching Allison and likely interrogating her – but Derek just comes right for him.

He squats down, onto his knees, right next to him, so Stiles can see his face. Derek just looks at him for a moment, his lips parted, an indescribable expression on his face. He looks utterly destroyed to have to see Stiles like this; hurt and bleeding and barely cognizant enough to move or do much of anything but lie there and hurt. Derek reaches his hand out and touches Stiles’ hair, and his hand is so big and warm and strong and Stiles melts into the touch – starts crying, because he can’t believe it.

“I am so sorry,” Derek says, and Stiles reaches his good hand out and paws at Derek’s knee. “Baby, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry –“

“I thought –“ he chokes out, even as Derek suggests he not speak right now, he just stay put, rest, the ambulance is coming – “…I thought you – you were going to –“ he chokes on his words, coughing up a few dots of blood out onto the carpet, while Derek pats him on the back and shakes his head. “You came,” he says, incredulous.

All the ways he imagined this situation playing out, Derek just showing up and tearing the place apart hadn’t ever occurred to him. Which is ironic now, in hindsight, because it really, really should have occurred to him, considering things that Derek had said in the past. Derek had said that if anyone ever put their hands on Stiles, he would lose his mind. When he opened up that box and saw Stiles’ severed fucking finger, it’s likely he punched a hole through his wall.

“I will always come after you, Stiles,” he promises, voice so close to Stiles’ ear it sends shivers up and down his spine. “I will always follow you.”

“She cut my finger off.”

Derek’s lips curve downwards. An expression so murderous, so angry, so unlike the Derek that Stiles knows crosses over his face, and Stiles would be afraid of it if he were anyone else.

But he knows who that expression is meant for. And so Stiles isn’t scared at all.

“Shhh,” is what Derek decides to say about that, and maybe that’s for the best. “Let’s not talk about it. You’re safe, now. No one is going to touch you, not anymore.”

From over Derek’s head, he hears Erica’s familiar harsh voice, calling out to him. “Derek,” she says, hard and clipped, and Derek looks over his shoulder. As he moves, it affords Stiles the room to get a look at what’s going on in the rest of the room himself, remembering that he is not entirely alone with Derek right now.

Boyd and Erica have both got one of Kate Argent’s arms. They dragged her out of wherever she was hiding in her closet, maybe underneath a pile of shoes which is comical enough a thought that Stiles almost snorts – almost. There’s a long trail of blood behind them, and Erica is smirking and Boyd has no expression on his face, and Kate is on her knees. Derek stares at the scene for just a moment, head turned, and then he looks back at where Stiles is still lying on the ground, immobile.

He appraises Stiles for a second, cocking his head to the side. “You think I should have mercy?” Derek asks, reaching two fingers out to gently stroke at Stiles’ tear stained cheek.

Stiles blinks and considers the amount of power that Derek is handing over him; Derek is essentially asking Stiles if he thinks that Kate should get a nice quick death or if Derek should do something terrible to her first, so in more ways than one, Derek is putting Kate’s pain and fate right in Stiles’ hands. Having that much of a control over someone else’s ultimate death shouldn’t entice him, not at all.

And it doesn’t. But it almost does. Almost. It’s getting harder to see the lines between right and wrong, when it comes to he and Derek. Everything feels gray, and blurry, and nothing can ever truly be black and white. Stiles didn’t know it when he agreed to this relationship with Derek, even after he knew the truth about how Derek made his money, but he was going to be a part of it. Even if Derek tells him as a little as possible and even if he tries to shield Stiles from everything to the best of his ability, Stiles is caught up in it. This moment, right now, is proof enough.

Kate killed Derek’s family. She burned them all alive, and gave Derek an entire life of pain and suffering and misery because of it. And Allison was right about not listening to Kate; he should know better, after all, being a cop’s son. You never pay the kidnapper what they want. You never pay the ransom. It would be a disrespect to Stiles if Derek had paid her that fucking money after taking Stiles’ fucking finger.

No. Kate kidnapped Stiles and tortured him, and Derek loves and cares about Stiles so much, so fucking much, and Kate knew that. She tried to use it to her advantage. She’s a bad person. She is malicious, and sadistic, and cruel, and psychotic, and she offers nothing, absolutely nothing to the world at all.

Stiles looks Derek right in the eyes. “No,” he says, and Derek’s lips curve upwards like he’s proud of Stiles, or something. It’s not right.

He leans down and kisses Stiles gently on the cheek, careful not to irritate any of his wounds. “Everything is okay, now,” he promises. “No one will ever touch you again.”

Stiles doesn’t know if that’s a promise Derek can really make, considering who he is. But all the same, Derek has said it, and so Stiles has to believe it. He just has to.

Lydia appears at Derek’s side, looking bizarrely pretty and put together and calm for the current situation, and puts her hand on Derek’s shoulder. “I’ve got him,” she says to him, and Derek shoots Stiles another anxious look. “Take care of this, I’ve got him.”

Like it physically pains him to move away from Stiles, Derek grits his teeth. He stares, and he stares, holding Stiles’ eye contact for as long as he can. And then he gets up, rising to his full height as Lydia wraps her arms gingerly around Stiles’ body and hefts him up a bit.

Stiles groans in pain, wincing and trying to push Lydia’s hands away, but Lydia persists. “It’s all right,” she promises. While Stiles watches Derek cross the room over to where Boyd and Erica are holding Kate, Allison leaning up against the wall with her arms crossed observing the entire thing, Lydia kisses Stiles on the cheek just like Derek had done and runs her fingers through Stiles’ hair.

Which is weird, considering Lydia’s hardly ever spoken to him. She acts like she cares about him, or something. More likely than not, she cares that Stiles is Derek’s.

Kate grins this toothy thing at Derek as he gets closer, cocking her head to the side. “Sorry about your pet,” she says, and Derek just walks closer. “He screams very nicely, though, I see why you like him so much.”

Derek has nothing to say. Stiles would think that he’d have a whole big speech, about how Kate is a murdering psychobitch and she deserves to rot in hell for everything that she’s done to Derek over the years. Or about how Stiles is ten times better than she’ll ever be, or how he’s going to kill her and feel nothing but relief about it, or – or just something.

But he’s quiet. Silent. He just walks right up to her with determination in his steps, a blank expression on his face, and pulls her arm out of Boyd’s grip. He twists it, so Kate screams in pain and tries to pull away – to no avail.

Allison hands Derek a shotgun, which Derek is quick to take. He presses it underneath Kate’s arm, looks her in the face for one extended second. Says nothing, nothing, nothing. Maybe he’s just relishing the moment.

Lydia curls her arms a bit tighter around Stiles as the first shot rings out. It’s loud, and it sounds powerful, and Kate’s screams are nearly drowned out. Then, Derek fires it again, right into the socket of her arm, and Kate is screaming, and screaming. Erica is honest to god smiling, which is surprising and not in equal amounts, and Stiles has to look away. He buries his face in Lydia’s body and winces, because he doesn’t want to see this. He might be part of Derek’s world, but he doesn’t need to watch – he’s not like them.

Stiles can only squeeze his eyes shut as Derek fires off the final shot, and Kate’s arm comes clean off. There’s a sick ripppinngg sound of flesh, the pitter patter of blood hitting the floor at a rapid pace, and then Derek is tossing her limp arm off to the side with a hard flop to the ground. There’s blood and flesh and bone particles all over the carpet. Kate cannot stop screaming.

Derek steps back, while Erica releases Kate’s other arm with a pleased sounding huff. “Nice,” she says, lifting her chin in the air. “Eye for an eye.”

“Finish her or don’t,” he says, turning around on his heel and leaving Kate’s screaming, writhing body alone with Boyd and Erica. “I don’t give a shit.”

He comes to Stiles immediately, pulling his face out from Lydia’s neck and cradling it in his hands. Stiles is skeeved out by the blood all over Derek’s clothes, now, but he can’t find it in him to really move away. He just blinks up at him from Lydia’s arms, while Derek squats down to his eye level and smiles very thinly at him. “You okay?”

“No,” Stiles answers honestly, and Derek’s mouth twists up in distaste, but not surprise. Why would Stiles be okay right now?

Derek sighs through his nose and strokes his thumb along a blossoming bruise on Stiles’ face, raking his eyes up and down like he had spent some time thinking maybe he’d never get to see it again. “I am so sorry,” he says again, as though this is all he can say. Really, what else is Derek supposed to say to him about any of this?

There’s a clicking sound, the unmistakable cocking of a gun. Derek immediately takes Stiles gently and tucks his face into his chest, right before the final gunshot rings clear and loud in his ears. Stiles doesn’t know why Derek bothers to shield him like that, all the time – as though he’s afraid of Stiles being corrupted, or something. Or he thinks that Stiles is so much more innocent than he really is.

Stiles is the one who practically okay’d Kate’s arm being blown off. He’s not as innocent as Derek might like to think.

“We gotta go,” Erica says, and Derek grips onto Stiles tighter.

“Okay,” Derek agrees, taking Stiles by his underarms and attempting to pull him up. “Okay, we’re going. Baby, just – bear with me.”

He stands. Very quickly, Derek scoops Stiles up into his arms bridal style and starts carrying him away. Out of Kate’s bedroom, while Stiles does his level best to keep his eyes downcast so he doesn’t see anything that he really doesn’t want to. He’s seen enough, already. Enough for a lifetime.

It occurs to him, as he’s being carried through a beautiful house with high ceilings and chandeliers and marble floors, that he’s never going to be the same after this. It’s not just the fact that he lost a finger – of course that’s an irreversible thing he’ll have to live with for the rest of his life – but it’s about the way he was affected internally.

You don’t come back from something like this just the same as you were. Stiles curls his hand against his chest and doesn’t know what to think, say, do, anything. He just wants to go back to Derek’s apartment and be alone with him, even while knowing somewhere deep inside that this should be the final straw. He shouldn’t see Derek anymore.

Being with Derek means this. The shadowcurtain is gone. There is no glamour in what Derek does – Stiles had been naïve.

Derek carries him out onto the front porch, setting Stiles down on the top step and helping him lean his weak body up against one of the railing posts. Allison patters down the steps, looking over her shoulder at them as she goes, and Stiles wonders what her role in all this really was. If she’s as benign as she makes herself seem.

He’s too tired to think about that, right now.

Lydia and Boyd follow suit, but Derek crouches down right in front of Stiles and takes his injured hand in his own, examining it. Stiles tries to pull away with a hiss, because it hurts, it fucking hurts, but Derek just shhh’s him and takes a closer look. He frowns, looking up to meet Stiles’ eyes. “I think it’s too late to reattach,” he says in a quiet, somber voice – as though he’s telling someone they have cancer.

Stiles had accepted that, so he just nods. “Yeah,” he says, voice cracking in the middle.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Derek goes on, but his voice has no real oomph to it. It sounds like all he wants to do is go into a room and lock the door and sit with his head in his hands, guilt overcoming him like Stiles knows it does almost all the time.

That’s two times Kate has made him feel like that, and it isn’t fair. She’s – or she was – the entire reason for so many of Derek’s deep emotional issues. It’s not fair she makes Derek feel like this, on top of everything else she ever did to him.

“It’s just – it’s just a finger. Not even an important one. You’ll – you can just…it’ll be fine. It’s okay. It’s no big deal.”

As he speaks, Stiles starts to cry. He looks over Derek’s head at where the rest of his friends or business partners or whatever it is he calls them pile into an unfamiliar car with unfamiliar plates, and he cries. Because he knows that Derek is just talking.

It is a big deal. It is, it is, it is. It’s a piece of his body, gone.

“I am so sorry,” Derek says for the trillionth time, and Stiles wants to scream at him to shut the fuck up and stop apologizing to him, but he’s so tired. He just cries and swipes his tears away with the back of his good hand, blubbering and shrugging.

“Just a finger,” he repeats in a whisper.

In the distance, Stiles can hear sirens. He can tell from the way that Derek tenses up around the eyes and the shoulders that this is his cue to leave, and Stiles doesn’t want him to. He wants Derek to ride in the ambulance with him and go all the way to the hospital and hold his hand, the one with all the fingers, and be there for him.

But that’s not how this is going to go. It can’t go that way. Stiles is angry at him, so angry he could tear his hair out, but then he can’t…justify that. It’s not fair. So many, many things aren’t fair.

“I sent them an anonymous tip. Your father has been looking for you,” he explains, and he has to clear his throat because it cracks. And Stiles wonders if Derek wants to cry. “You were kidnapped by Kate Argent because she knew that you and I were involved in a relationship. She is the one who set my family house on fire, and she did so in the hopes of receiving insurance money from me. She was a very deranged, disturbed person. I didn’t give her the money then, and so she came after you to hold you for ransom so I’d give her that money now. I was never here. Kate was killed by a faction of her own men who had grown tired of her erratic and frightening behavior. They let you go because they didn’t want to be wrapped up in a kidnapping case involving the Sheriff’s son. Repeat that back to me.”

Stiles closes his eyes and sucks in a deep breath, leaning his forehead up against the railing as the sirens draw closer. “Kate knew you and I were in a relationship, and she kidnapped me for ransom money from you. You were never here. Kate was killed by her own men because they were sick of her, and they let me go because I’m the Sheriff’s son.”

Derek’s lips quirk. “Good enough,” he says, running his fingers through Stiles’ hair. He looks at him some more, eyes lingering on the tiny little nub of his ring finger, bloody and hard to look at and disgusting, and he shakes his head. “You deserve a lot more than this.”

“Derek!” Erica calls from behind them. Stiles looks over Derek’s head and sees her hanging out the driver’s side window, waving her hand frantically. “We’ve got to go!”

They do have to go. The sirens are close, blaring and loud, and Stiles can see some of the lights through the trees if he squints hard enough. They’re in the forest, he notes, looking around himself. It’s very pretty here.

“I will be there,” Derek promises him, slowly rising to his full height but not yet taking his hands off of Stiles. “At the earliest possible second, I will be there with you, understand?”

“Okay,” Stiles croaks.

“Don’t say too much. You’re – you’re in shock.”

Probably, he is. He doesn’t know.

“Derek!”

“I’m coming!” He snaps, and then looks at Stiles one last time. It’s this look, that suggests he would give anything, anything in the world, to not be who he is right about now. To be a normal person. To be able to be there, entirely, for his deeply hurt and bleeding out boyfriend. To be able to get in that ambulance and ride with him. “As soon as I can,” he repeats, backing away. Then, he turns on his heel and bolts off to the car waiting for him.

As soon as he’s inside, behind the blacked out tinted windows, the car is speeding off and away. It goes down the driveway and disappears into the foliage of the tree cover, and then Stiles is left alone. He sits on the porch listening to the sirens get closer and closer, his eyes starting to drift closed as he shudders around another wave of fresh pain from his throbbing hand.

The ambulance comes, and the police cars, all lining up in the drive while Stiles just sits and waits. A car door slams, and Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the footsteps coming toward him as fast as humanly possible are his father’s. The paramedics hop out of the ambulance and open up the double back doors, and then the Sheriff is right there, putting his hands on Stiles and lifting his chin up to look him in the face.

“Oh, my God,” he’s saying, taking in the full sight of Stiles in all his misery. “Oh, my God, kid. What happened?” A warm, firm hand on his cheek. “What happened?”

“Please call Derek,” he begs, as the tears start welling up from having his father here comforting him – it always makes him revert back to being a little kid, when he sees his dad being so worried about him. “Dad, please call him, please call him, I don’t – please call Derek.”

He says it ten percent just to convince his father and the rest of them that Derek was never here in the first place, and ninety percent because he wants Derek waiting there at the hospital for him, before he ever even makes it out of the back of the truck. He doesn’t want to be alone there.

The Sheriff catches sight of the lost finger, and his eyes go huge and wide as quarters. He looks at Stiles in the face again, lips parted. It seems as though he doesn’t know what to say.

“Please,” he whispers one more time.

The next thing he knows, he’s in the ambulance with his father holding his good hand while the other is poked at and examined closely, being taken far, far away from Kate Argent’s house. Hopefully, he never has to see it ever again.

Except for in his nightmares.


	12. Beginning.

They put Stiles on drugs. As soon as he’s in the hospital bed, he’s being loaded up and then examined while he stares at the ceiling and thinks about sixteen different subjects at once – or at least, it seems that way. At one point he lifts his hand, alone with his father and a nurse who happily brings him a tray of hospital food, and says, “four fingers means I’m a cat,” which is met with a stern, concerned look from his father and an unconcerned smile from the nurse.

He’s still buzzing pretty hard when Derek shows up. He appears in the one ten minute interval his father left Stiles’ bedside to go on a hunt for coffee, which Stiles has no qualms about, because the man probably needs a lot of coffee. He probably heard Stiles was missing from a frantic Scott the second he didn’t come home that night, and hasn’t slept a wink since.

Derek peeks into the room and looks over his shoulder down the hall, into the room, as if making sure there’s no one else around. In all reality, he’s likely just checking to make sure the cops are nowhere in sight. Stiles had told his story before the drugs kicked in, and Parrish had written it all down and stared at him with that firm-lipped, narrow-eyed stare he always has on whenever it comes to a case, but something tells Stiles they don’t necessarily…believe it. Not word for word.

When Derek slips all the way inside, it becomes clear that he’s holding a very large plush polar bear with a big red bow around its neck. He hefts it into the room and then sets it down on the foot of Stiles’ bed, right next to where Stiles’ feet are poking out underneath his sheets and blanket. Stiles watches all of this with no comment. He just stares as Derek moves, and then stares at the polar bear with a twist to his mouth.

Awkwardly and at a loss for words, Derek reaches out and touches the polar bear on its head, patting it a few times. “Ah –“ he starts, and then clears his throat. “I’m not very good at condolences.”

Stiles snorts, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “I don’t care about what you do or don’t bring me,” he snaps a bit venomously, and Stiles’ tone seems to have Derek shrinking back a bit. “Don’t do that thing where you just buy me something and then act like everything’s okay.”

Derek’s jaw ticks. “I wasn’t,” he defends in a low voice, “I thought you’d like it.”

Stiles does like it. It’s just that the feeling of appreciating or liking it is all the way in the back of his mind, sitting on the furthest burner and simmering, while everything else inside of his head is currently boiling. Overflowing, spilling over the edge, sizzling. He has too many emotions inside of him and he’s medicated and he feels all over the place, so in spite of the fact that Stiles had practically begged for Derek to come for two hours, now that he has him here, Stiles wants to punch him in the nose.

“Derek,” he says, and then he holds his hand up. It’s not as gruesome as it was at Kate’s house; not hastily wrapped up by a girl who barely knew what she was doing, not spurting blood every five seconds. His hand is clean and the bandaging is fresh, a crisp white. Still, there’s something disturbing about it, just to see it – four normal fingers, and then an abnormal space where something used to be. “How could you – how could you let this happen?”

“Don’t say I let this happen,” he says, looking offended and upset and about ten different emotions that Stiles doesn’t have a name for. “I did everything I could to try and keep this from happening –“

“Except for let me know,” Stiles hisses, lowering his hand so it rests down on the bed sheets. It hurts to move it, even with his medication, and so he lets it sit there like a dead body, unmoving. “Except for tell me to be on the look out for a murdering psychopath who would do anything to get her hands on your money –“

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Derek moves closer to the head of the bed, to Stiles’ body. He’s all fresh and clean and smells like laundry detergent, no evidence whatsoever that he had only just hours before shot the arm off of a woman in her own bedroom; hell, he even shaved. He looks so perfect and put together.

Stiles, on the other hand, looks a mess. They gave him a sponge bath and it was humiliating, but he can still feel blood all over him. Smell Kate’s perfume on his skin.

“Right,” Stiles shakes his head and pointedly refuses to make eye contact with Derek. “Because being tortured and held captive for money is so much better than being anxious about something –“

“Let’s not do this.” He moves closer, closer still, pressing his body up against Stiles’ bed side and curling his fingers into the sheets. “Please. Don’t be angry with me.”

Stiles gapes at him. He finally turns his body fully to stare at him dead in the face, mouth hanging open, because he just can’t believe it. He cannot believe Derek could say that to him, here, now, in the wake of everything that’s happened.

Don’t be angry with him? Don’t be ANGRY?

“I can feel however the hell I want,” and then he’s suddenly yelling. It’s loud, earsplittingly loud, in the tiny room they’re standing in, and Derek blinks in surprise. “What just happened to me, and everything, everything, you don’t get to tell me – and you –“

“Okay,” Derek cuts in over Stiles’ hysterics. Stiles is heaving in great big breaths, tears streaming down his face, his good hand curling into his blanket with a vice grip, and Derek touches him. He runs his fingers up and down Stiles’ back in a way that’s meant to be placating, but Stiles doesn’t want to be touched. “Okay, it’s okay, I’m sorry –“

“You should’ve told me, it would’ve been so easy, and I would’ve known, and I –“ he blubbers for a moment, trying in vain to catch his breath, “…and this wouldn’t have happened, and you – you – you let this – you let this happen.”

Derek looks like he has no idea, none whatsoever, of what he’s supposed to say. Stiles is unsure of exactly what Derek expected to happen when he walked through the doors of the hospital, how he expected Stiles to react. But he had to have known that it wasn’t going to be fun; it doesn’t answer for why he looks so nonplussed and upset and lost as to where to go from here. He just strokes his fingers through Stiles’ hair, mindful of the big bump from being hit in the head, and says nothing. Not a word.

Stiles cries into his good hand and leaves the other dead and off to the side. A part of him wants to tell Derek to stop, stop touching him, get away from him, he wants nothing to do with him, not anymore. But like always, it loses to the part of him that can’t stand the thought of that.

Logic has no place here. Not anymore.

“They said – they said if they had – gotten the finger –“ he wipes fruitlessly at his eyes and Derek listens, lips a firm line. “…even fifteen minutes earlier. Even fifteen minutes.” Even while he knows it’s pointless to even think about it, he is sure beyond all belief that he’ll spend the next ten years of his life, at minimum, looking down at the empty space between his middle and pinky fingers, thinking about those fifteen minutes. Everything could’ve been different.

Derek looks at the floor. At the wall. At the door leading out into the hallway. Anything, anywhere, but at Stiles. As though it’s being forced out of him by a string, Derek speaks. “…if I had brought it here myself, it would’ve been incriminating. It would’ve…“

Stiles looks at him. He just stares, for a long time. His finger is gone and gone forever, no replacement, no nothing, and it’s all because of Derek. There is no other way to get around it. Derek is the one who neglected to tell Stiles the truth in favor of avoiding a tough conversation. Derek is the one who didn’t get the finger on ice or to the hospital on time because he was too afraid of being arrested. And while a part of Stiles has to understand, has to, that yeah, maybe the reattachment of Stiles’ finger took second place to, you know, getting Stiles the hell out of there before Kate cut something else of his off, or before she killed him…

He knows that. He understands that. But he is so, so angry and he feels entitled to the emotion.

Before he gets the opportunity to even attempt to vocalize anything he feels about that statement, his hospital room door is opening up again, and his father is there. He’s got a Styrofoam cup of coffee, his uniform all crinkled from being worn for two days straight, and huge, unignorable bags underneath his eyes. He stands in the doorway for a moment, taking in the scene – and what a sight it must be to behold.

Stiles, tears streaming down his face, and Derek, hovering next to him – while a toy polar bear sits and leers at the two of them from the end of the bed. The Sheriff only takes one second to stare, and then he sets his jaw and points at Derek with all the incrimination in the world. “Get. Out.” Each word is like a gunshot going off, from how much intensity he puts into them.

“Dad, don’t,” Stiles insists, reaching out to grab at Derek’s wrist and hold onto him. Ten seconds ago he wanted Derek to get the hell out himself, but he’s…confused. He doesn’t know what he wants. “Please don’t.”

Like Stiles hadn’t spoken at all, the Sheriff steps farther into the room, coming closer and closer to where Derek is standing. “Get the hell out of here, or I’ll have you taken out by security.”

Stiles grips onto Derek harder, tighter. He doesn’t want to be alone here. He doesn’t want Derek to go.

“You’re upsetting him,” Derek grits out from between his teeth, and the Sheriff looks like he could give a shit about that. As a parent, there does come a time when you have to put aside how your child feels about something and only focus on what’s going to be best for them. And the way Sheriff sees it, at this given time, getting Derek the hell away from Stiles no matter how much Stiles cries about it is the right thing to do.

Stiles knows he’s right. He has to be, and there’s no way to reason another alternative option. All the same, he just…he can’t. He can’t.

“Don’t go,” Stiles begs him, lower lip trembling. “I don’t wanna be alone, I don’t want you to leave me here, I need you, I need…”

But, see, Derek knows what the right thing to do is. He can’t stand here and get into a screaming match or an actual fight with the god damn Sheriff, Stiles’ father, in a fucking hospital room. That’s just too much to add onto everything else that’s already happened. The Sheriff isn’t going to let him stand here for another second, and so he has to go.

He sets his eyes on the Sheriff like he’d give anything, anything at all, to punch his fucking lights out right about now. But he uses his bigger, much stronger hand to pry Stiles’ fingers loose from his wrist. He says, “it’s okay,” in a gentle, soothing voice. It’s a lot like the voice he’d use on Stiles after a scene - as if Stiles is spooked, and needs all the reassurance in the world. “Everything is okay. Your father is here, and Scott is coming. You’re not alone.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Stiles pushes, reaching out again to try and latch onto his shirt. Derek dodges away from his hand like it physically pains him to do so, and slowly backs away, and away, and away, not losing Stiles’ eye contact.

“You call me if you need anything,” he says. And he walks, and they stare at each other. There are a million things that they have to say to one another, and even more than that to be resolved between them. The unspoken hovers in the air as Derek walks away, shooting the Sheriff one last murderous glare as he puts his hand on the door knob.

Nothing is okay between them. But all the same, Stiles would give anything, anything in the world, another one of his fingers even, to have Derek climb into this hospital bed with him and hold him. Rock him back and forth and tell him everything is going to be okay, even when it isn’t.

He needs his boyfriend. This is the one thing that Derek cannot give him.

“Anything, anything, baby,” he says, and then he’s out the door.

In the wake of this, Stiles is so angry he thinks he could black out. He sets his eyes on his father and glowers, shaking his head. “Why would you do that?” He demands, his voice all low and scratchy and pathetic.

“What’s the matter with you?” He shoots back rapid fire, looking at his son as if he’d gone ahead and grown ten heads. “All of this happened because of him. You know that. You know that, and now you want him in here holding your hand?”

God dammit, he’s right. It’s all so fucked up. It’s just so fucked up. Stiles knows he’s messed up in his head and he’s not thinking clearly and he needs time to process this – but he’s so raw right now. He cries a bit harder and pulls the polar bear up top with him, hugging it against his chest and burrowing his face into it like a little kid. That’s just how he feels right now; like a little, little kid, all alone and scared and unsure of what to do.

He curls into his bear and turns on his good side, so his bad hand can rest without being jostled too much. “Go away,” he mumbles pathetically, and the Sheriff sighs.

“Be angry with me all you want. You’re just lucky he’s not in jail, right now.”

“Leave me alone,” Stiles half-shouts, shoulders hunching as if to make himself vanish into the sheets. “Get out.”

Instead of doing that, Stiles hears the distinct sound of his father settling into one of the chairs lined up along the wall across from his bed. Then, papers shuffling, like he’s pulling out a file and examining it very closely. Likely, it’s the transcript of Stiles’ report. He’s combing that thing for as much information as he can, probably to try and incriminate Derek in some way, shape, or form, so he’ll be out of Stiles’ life once and for all.

But he won’t leave. He’ll sit there, even with Stiles’ hatred for him at the moment nearly suffocating the air in this room. Stiles falls asleep alone, with the steady beep of his heart monitor and the familiar and comforting breathing from his father across the room – and he wants, so much, for Derek to be there with him.

***

“It’s badass,” Scott says to Stiles over a pint of ice cream the next day, pointing emphatically at the missing finger all wrapped up. “You can make up a story on how it happened. Like, something badass to impress girls.” Quickly, he adjusts “Boys, I mean.”  
Stiles has only just been released from the hospital not two hours ago, sent home to his condo where Scott was anxiously awaiting his arrival. He’s on pain meds, still, has two full bottles of the stuff rattling around in his medicine cabinet now, and he’s exhausted and sad and really, not in the mood to do anything but sleep.

But ice cream with Scott, he can tolerate.

“I had my finger cut off and sent as ransom to my crimelord boyfriend,” he drawls, spooning in his ice cream with his upper lip curling. “It doesn’t get much cooler than that.”

“Well, yeah,” Scott agrees. “But you can’t exactly tell people that.”

Mumbling, Stiles shrugs. “There’s a lot I can’t tell people.”

Scott is silent for a moment, using his spoon mostly just to poke mindlessly at little hills of ice cream in his bowl. He looks at Stiles for an extended second, and when Stiles turns to catch him staring, he immediately looks down and frowns, biting his lip. Stiles stares at him harder, as if daring him to speak up, say what he wants to, and Scott takes the bait after the third time he looks up and catches Stiles still looking.

Straightening up, Scott clears his throat and puts his spoon down, running the back of his hand over his mouth. “Uh –“ he starts, eloquent as ever. “I just wanted to ask you. Look, I don’t – I don’t want to put my opinion on the matter out there or, like, put it in your head even. I don’t want to, like, step on your toes or anything.”

Stiles knows where this is going anyway, so he simply eats his ice cream and frowns at his hand.

“But I just – okay. Do you think, like really truly think, being with Derek is a…a good idea? Anymore?”

Stiles doesn’t even have to think about it before answering. He says, “it’s a terrible idea,” near immediately, and Scott blinks at him as if he’s surprised. But he shouldn’t be. Not at all. “I’m lying to my father and the police about a murder I witnessed. I got my finger chopped off. Derek can hardly be there for me right now.” He shrugs, miserable and quiet. “It’s terrible. I should leave him.”

Silence.

Scott says, “but you love him, huh?”

Stiles has always known that to suffer is not the same as being in love. He’s watched a lot of movies and read a lot of books and listened to a lot of music, and so he knows how certain things are romanticized. The wrong things, most of the time. It’s not love to be miserable, and it’s not love to be fighting all the time, and it’s not love to feel as though the entire world is crashing in around you at all times. It’s an extreme emotion, yes, but not a healthy one.

That’s not Stiles and Derek’s problem. There is no misery or suffering in their relationship. They’re not constantly putting each other through pain just to prove to each other that what they feel is actually real – no, none of that. The bad of their relationship comes from extenuating circumstances. Things that neither of them can control.

Stiles is in love with Derek, in a way that burns in the best possible way. It isn’t fair, not in the slightest, that their relationship is cursed. It’s not Stiles’ fault. There could be arguments made for it being somewhat Derek’s fault, but Stiles can’t fault him. He does no wrong, in Stiles’ eyes.

It isn’t fair. “I should leave him,” he repeats, just to say it out loud.

Scott sighs, long and hard through his nose. “You won’t.”

No. No, Stiles won’t. God dammit, he won’t.

***

Stiles opens up his door following the ominous ringing of his doorbell at the crack of dawn the following day, and is more than a little surprised to see, of all people, Boyd. He’s standing there on Stiles’ stoop, looking bizarre and out of place in a dark blue t-shirt, and his facial expression doesn’t change even when Stiles meets his eyes.  
“I’m here to bring you to Derek’s,” he says, voice low and without inflection. Stiles rubs at his jaw with his good hand – he should have figured as much. Boyd would never come to his door if it didn’t have something to do with Derek. “He wants to speak to you in person.”

“Right,” Stiles leans up against his doorframe and has this itch to cross his arms over his chest – nearly does. Then, he remembers that he can’t just go around stuffing his mangled hand underneath his opposite arm because it would hurt like a bitch. Frankly, using that hand to do near anything has proven fruitless and painful. He had an article due at midnight last night and somehow managed to churn it out one handed, gritting his teeth the entire time. “Just calling me and asking me to come over would be too simple.”

Boyd’s jaw ticks. Something tells Stiles that Boyd doesn’t like him, and not because he’s the Sheriff’s son or because he takes up too much of Derek’s time. But because he genuinely finds Stiles, his person and the things he says and does…annoying. Which is fine. “He had the impression you wouldn’t have answered.”

Now that, Stiles doesn’t have a smartass comment to shoot back to. In all reality, Stiles can’t say for sure whether or not he’s ignoring Derek’s calls, right now. This whole thing has been such a whirlwind of bullshit, it’s hard for him to keep track of what he is or isn’t mad about anymore. But one thing is for certain; even while he’s desperate and dying to see Derek, touch him, talk to him, be near him, he is simultaneously reluctant to have anything to do with him.

There is so much. Stiles had been naïve and stupid, and the reality check still has him thrown. He’s not thinking right.

“Let’s go,” Boyd gestures with his head to his car – a big thing all too similar to Erica’s, to the point where Stiles is sure it is the same one she had been driving.

“I should say no,” Stiles squares his shoulders and narrows his eyes, and Boyd definitely looks decidedly murderous in the wake of that. Stiles isn’t afraid of him. Not one bit.

Further proof of why he has no reason to be follows when Boyd says, “if you don’t come, that’ll be on me. Should I play on your good conscience?”

“What makes you think I have any better of a conscience than you?”

Shifting from one foot to the other, Boyd sighs long and hard through his mouth and looks just about ready to punch a hole through the side of Stiles’ house. “Because I know you do. Let’s go.”

Grinding his teeth a bit, Stiles doesn’t think he can say no. Not just because Boyd is likely to pick him up and dump him into that car whether he likes it or not and could do so as easily as picking up a potato, but also because he just…he can’t. He can’t say no. Not to Derek. Not even in spite of everything.

So they go. Stiles gets into the car and recognizes the air freshener stuffed into the vent and confirms it as Erica’s car, or at least one that they share. Staring at the side of Boyd’s face only as long as he dares, he wonders if he and Erica are some sort of a thing. Erica has never mentioned it, and Stiles has never really spoken to Boyd before today, and Derek isn’t exactly out here giving information to Stiles like candy – so Stiles can only wonder.

It would make sense. He can’t imagine Lydia is very much Boyd’s type. And who else do these people even speak to?

Boyd seems very content to chug along in silence on the drive over, but Stiles’ leg jiggles up and down and he feels on edge the longer the quiet persists. Boyd doesn’t even drive with the fucking radio on; it’s like being in a morgue, or something.

So Stiles chatters. It what he does best. “The meds they put me on make me super lackadaisical,” he says a bit off the cuff, and Boyd doesn’t even glance at him. “I could fall asleep anywhere, on these. Which is saying something, because I can’t barely sleep without my pillow.”

Boyd looks at him for a moment. Stiles looks back, raising his eyebrows. “Hm,” is his response, and then he focuses back on the road.

“Hey, does Derek ever talk about me to you?”

“What?”

“Like – what does he say about me?” He leans his chin in his palm, eyeballing Boyd very seriously. “I just wonder.”

“What, you wanna braid each other’s hair and gossip?”

Rearing his neck back with a scoff, Stiles frowns. “Because I’m gay, I’m like a woman, is that it?”

In the only display of an actual emotion Stiles has ever seen from Boyd before, he sputters for a moment as if taken completely by surprise. He looks at Stiles a bit critically and then he snaps, “I’m not a homophobe. I just find you annoying.”

“That’s not news.” He rolls his eyes and stares out the window. “Suppose I told Derek you were mean to me –“

“Let’s not – okay,” he glares out the front windshield and Stiles can only smirk bigger, watching as Boyd desperately tries to back peddle. “I apologize. And for the record, I’m sorry about your finger. Okay?”

“Okay,” Stiles repeats back to him. As he turns and faces forward again, it’s almost impossible for him to not think oh, the power… “What would Derek even really do to you if I ever came to him with some shit like that?”

Boyd side-eyes him, but says nothing. Fine, then. Stiles has an imagination.

They pull up to the parking lot of Beacon Terrace and Stiles sees the familiar sign beckoning them, fancy and lit up, surrounded by nice potted flowers. It brings back a thousand other memories of coming here, dating all the way back to the beginning of their relationship. Seeing the building and finding Derek’s bedroom windows all the way at the tippy-top, Stiles has to sigh through his nose and lean back into his seat. It makes him feel nostalgic for something he hasn’t even necessarily lost, yet.

Everything is different, now. He sees it with new eyes. It’s like he’s shed his old skin entirely and is only just now in the process of becoming somebody new.

They slide along the rows of cars, Boyd making a sharp left to likely bring Stiles up to the entrance and drop him there. But as they go, it becomes more and more clear that everything is not necessarily as it should be. In the roundabout of the entrance to the building, there are three police cars lined up like they belong there, and a lump forms in Stiles’ throat. That is not good. That is not good at all.

Stiles takes his seatbelt off. He forgets, briefly, that his finger is fucked and uses that hand, winces and makes a sharp sound of pain, but doesn’t stop moving. He leans forward and tries to get a better look at what’s going on, brow furrowing as Boyd abruptly takes a sharp turn to tuck them into a parking space beside a huge red truck. Out of sight, for the most part.

“What’s…” he starts, voice small and confused, and then clears his throat. Boyd is quiet, deathly so in the passenger seat.

It’s not five seconds later that the sliding glass doors are opening, revealing Derek himself. He’s wearing his usual garb, dark clothing and a frown, and as he moves more into Stiles’ line of vision, the entire scene becomes much more clear. He’s got his hands cuffed behind his back, being lead forward by a hand on his shoulder. Parrish is there beside him, and Stiles parts his lips, shaking his head. This cannot be happening. This just can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this…

It becomes ultimately clear that it is absolutely and completely happening when Stiles sees that it’s his own father leading Derek off to the waiting police car. Of course it is.

“God dammit,” Boyd mutters, and Stiles watches in abject upset and half-terror as Derek gets put into the back of a police car. The car door slams and the Sheriff looks across the parking lot with a grimace on his face. He just looks so intent. So…vindictive, in that moment. Stiles is so angry, so angry.

And scared. He can’t help it when he leans back into his seat and starts to cry, unwarranted and unbidden. The tears fall down his cheeks and he tries to turn his face away, humiliated in the worst way in front of a man who has likely never cried about anything in his whole entire life.

He whimpers a bit, sniffling and covering his face with his good hand. It’s silent in the car except for that, just for a moment, and then he hears the distinct sound of Boyd’s seatbelt unbuckling. There’s nothing that he or Stiles can do about this, not now, and he can already hear the engines of the police cars starting and they’re going to drive Derek off and do god knows what with him, and they’re both…helpless. Stiles wants to scream. Or, punch something. Maybe himself.

A big, warm hand puts itself on his shoulder, and Stiles nearly flinches back from it on instinct. “It’s okay,” Boyd says, voice sounding a little uncomfortable. Of course he’s fucking uncomfortable – Stiles is sobbing in the passenger seat of his car, and what the hell would Boyd know about comforting people? “Stiles, it’s all right. Derek is very smart. They probably just – they probably just want to question him, okay? Putting him in handcuffs is just some thrill for them. It’s not as serious as it looked.”

Intrinsically, Stiles knows this. Derek is very smart. He’s made it this far in his life without being caught and without going to jail, and this entire situation probably doesn’t even rank when it’s compared to other things he’s done. This is child’s play for Derek; lying to the police and making up stories to save his own ass. He’s done it hundreds of times before.

Still. He cries and feels small and awful, leaning back into Boyd’s hand and wishing more than anything that it were Derek’s. “This has been the worst week of my life,” he sobs, and Boyd huffs as he pats Stiles on the back a couple of times.

“Okay,” Boyd says. “It’s fine, it’s all right.”

It isn’t. Stiles wishes he could go into that headspace where Derek is all he can think about, where Derek touching him is all matters – where he feels safe only because Derek’s hands are on him. He wants Derek to talk to him in that soft, gentle voice like he’s something special and only meant for him. He wants a bubble bath and kisses on his neck and endless, endless praise.

He wants his dom. He needs his fucking dom.

***

It takes somewhere in the realm of half an hour for Boyd to calm Stiles down. Or at least, calm him down enough that they can exit the vehicle. Stiles is still shaken up and scared and resisting with everything in him the urge to call his father and scream, and yell, and fucking yell that he fucking hates his guts and how dare he do this, and how dare he betray Stiles like this, and on and on.  
It wouldn’t make a lick of difference.

Boyd takes Stiles up to the penthouse without a word, but keeping his hand gripped on Stiles’ shoulder as some sense of comfort. It’s funny, less than an hour earlier Boyd had said he found Stiles annoying and acted as though he could barely tolerate him. It might be true, but the genuine way he seems to be concerned with Stiles’ upset has Stiles thinking that he’s not as cold-blooded as he likes to make himself seem.

Boyd keys his way inside and the first thing Stiles notices about the inside of Derek’s apartment is that it’s…cold. As though they’ve stepped back outside into the November air instead of just entered Derek’s very nice fucking penthouse. It becomes more clear why that is as the door closes behind them with a bang, and Stiles’ eyes scan across the scene in front of them.

There’s a broken vase on the floor, shattered off in the corner underneath a crack in the wall like someone had thrown it very hard right at that exact spot. The couch cushions are all in disarray, there’s an ashtray with about fifteen to twenty cigarette butts there on the coffee table like Derek had been chainsmoking inside, and, most notably, the glass doors leading out to his balcony are broken.

In their place, there’s blue electrical tape and plastic sheets, haphazardly thrown on as if they’re in the middle of being replaced. There’s no broken glass over there, at least, like someone had at least made an effort to clean up. More likely than not, Heidi.

When Boyd catches Stiles staring, he squeezes Stiles’ shoulder a bit, guiding him forward. “Derek threw a chair through it,” he explains, and Stiles blinks.

So that was Derek’s reaction to receiving Stiles’ finger in a box. He threw chairs through his windows and tore apart his couch. Stiles can’t say he’s necessarily all that surprised.

Boyd leads him into Derek’s bedroom and sits him down on the edge of the bed, before squatting down to his level and giving him a bit of a serious look. Then, Stiles would be shocked to learn that Boyd had anything but serious looks to put to his face. “Derek is going to be fine,” he says in a no-nonsense tone of voice, and Stiles nods only because he doesn’t want to argue. “I think you need some rest. I’m going to leave you alone, and when you wake up, Derek will be back. Okay?”

Stiles sniffs.

“I’m not leaving. I’ll be in the other room, because Derek would have my head if he knew I left you like this. Just…try to sleep.”

Even while Boyd is drawing the blackout curtains to erase the sun and turning off the lights and closing the door behind him, Stiles can’t imagine managing to sleep. He curls into Derek’s sheets and his pillow and smells him all over them, and smells a bit of himself too from how many times he’s been in this bed before – and he lies there with his eyes open, staring at the wall. He rests on a pillow and curls his hurt hand against his chest, tightening himself into as small a ball as possible.

He cries a bit more, and he’s never felt more alone, in Derek’s big, empty bedroom.

***

A hand, stroking up and down his back. Again and again the hand passes over the fabric of his shirt, and then a second hand comes into his hair. “Baby,” Derek’s voice says, and Stiles stirs groggily. He blinks across Derek’s bedroom and smacks his lips, mouth dry and his brain fizzling from how confused he feels. “Wake up, come on.”  
He turns and blearily looks up to find the lights are on. It’s dark outside now, no light filtering in through Derek’s black curtains, and Derek is hovering over him with a soft expression on his face. He’s in the same clothes he was wearing when he went in the back of the cop car, but he’s…fine. He’s just looking at Stiles with open worry, shifting his eyes over every last part of him.

Stiles glares and sits up all the way, the process made a bit harder when he only has one good hand to use to support his body. Derek moves to accommodate Stiles, shifting a bit but not necessarily removing himself from Stiles’ personal space. “Boyd said you were very – inconsolable.”

Inconsolable. Yeah, there’s a word for it.

Without even thinking about it, he throws one arm around Derek’s neck and squeezes him as tight as possible, and Derek hugs him back immediately. Both big arms wrap around Stiles’ slight body and tug him flush against his body, so there’s barely any breathing space between them. Stiles is crying again, because of course he is and that’s par for the course for this entire fucking week. He says, “I hate you,” into Derek’s ear, a pitiful whimpering noise that Derek just sighs at, rubbing Stiles’ back again and again. “I hate you, you fucking piece of shit –“

“I know you’re upset,” he says, in this diplomatic, all-knowing, completely calm voice that just makes Stiles feel even crazier. “I know you’ve been through a lot, it’s okay.”

“I was so worried, you asshole,” he blubbers, and Derek holds him even tighter.

“It’s fine. They just brought me in to –“

“I don’t wanna know, I don’t wanna hear it, God I’m so –“ he cuts off again, burrowing into Derek’s shoulder and wishing he could vanish there. “I’m so tired. I’m so exhausted. I don’t wanna know anymore, please.”

Derek is quiet for only ten more seconds, holding Stiles’ quaking body against his own. Then he pipes up again, “does your finger hurt?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Stiles squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “I don’t…” he shudders and breathes in Derek’s familiar scent. “I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to – Derek, I’m so – my mind. Too much has happened and I’m all fucked up and I don’t want to talk anymore, I don’t want to think. It feels like everything is ruined.”

In a quiet, quiet murmur, more quiet than Stiles has ever heard Derek be, he says, “don’t let her do that to me again.”

And of course, Stiles knows what Derek means without needing him to elaborate. Derek can now say that there were two times in his life when Kate Argent put her hands all over the things he cares most about in the entire world – and more than anything, it would kill him if she managed to destroy those things both times. There’s only so much that a person can take. Kate may be dead now, but the after effects of the things she did will always be there. The ghost in the basement.

“It’s not just about what she did,” Stiles pulls back and looks him in the face, right in his eyes, and shakes his head. Derek’s eyes are just like they always are – hazel, golden in the center in a way that catches the light. “It’s so much. You didn’t tell me, and I’m lying to my father about something that actually fucking matters, and he hates you, and I can’t imagine any scenario where this all turns out okay.”

“I can,” Derek says without even thinking about – like he has thought about it, already. Come to his conclusions, made his pro-con lists, done the flow chart and the math. “I can see it.”

Stiles doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to say. He’s so exhausted he thinks he might collapse underneath the weight of everything he can’t stop thinking about. He desperately wants to go back to the start of everything, when things were simple and fun and stupid. All about sex and money.

Things still are about sex and money. Stiles simply hadn’t known what he was getting himself into. Now, it seems, he can’t get himself out.

“I wanna go back to sleep,” he says, and Derek nods his head slowly. “I want you to hold me, just – your hands on me.”

“I can do that,” he agrees hastily, keeping his hands locked firmly around Stiles’ body like he can’t imagine ever letting go.

It might be wrong, to be cuddling up to Derek now after everything that’s happened, but Stiles long ago gave up on trying to always do the right thing. After all, turning points come faster than you can blink. There is no reverse button. You make the choice, or the universe chooses for you.

And Stiles has chosen.

***

Derek holds two pills out to Stiles in the palm of his hand, a glass of water dangling from his fingers in the other. “Take these,” he says, and Stiles looks at him from where he’s perched on the edge of the bed, legs dangling off the side. Derek blinks at him expectantly, rattling the pills around in his palm when Stiles doesn’t immediately take them.  
What else is Stiles supposed to do?

He takes them in his fingers and pops them into his mouth at the same time, glugging down the water while Derek watches the entire thing like a hawk. When Stiles drops the empty glass down on Derek’s bedside table, Derek heaves out a sigh from his nose. Slowly drops down onto his knees in between Stiles’ legs and looks up at him, putting one hand on Stiles’ thigh. It’s as if he’s lowering himself before Stiles in a display of humility, putting himself on the ground so his apology or explanation or whatever the hell he’s about to say carries much more weight than it would have otherwise.

“Your father isn’t stupid,” he starts, and Stiles looks away and stares out the window, jaw tightening. “The issue is, neither am I. He found this timestamped security footage from my building of the messenger delivering the box with your finger and me leaving my apartment shortly thereafter. So the question was if I was never at Kate’s house like you said I wasn’t, then where did I go?”

“A good question.”

“A very good question. I’m also a very good liar.”

Stiles looks at his hands. Stares at the bandages that need to be changed. He wonders if something like that should make him uncomfortable – to hear that Derek is so steady and smooth of a liar that he managed to at least make it so the Sheriff had nothing to hold him on, when there is so much he could’ve held him on. Obstruction of justice, bare minimum. Withholding fingers from the police, god dammit.

There are a lot of things about Derek that Stiles figures should make him uncomfortable. A couple of them do, as a matter of fact, but they’re always overshadowed when Derek puts his hands on him. Always.

“Baby, I need to know,” he strokes his hand up and down Stiles’ thigh, again and again and again, and it feels – good. It feels really good. It’s the best touch he’s had in days. “Everything else, all this bullshit aside, I need to know where we are, just you and me. I need you to tell me we’re together and you’re not leaving, I need that.”

Stiles looks away, and Derek immediately reaches up and takes his chin gently in between two fingers. He pulls it so Stiles has to look at him again, and Stiles swallows upon meeting Derek’s eyes. They’re so big and sincere and, if Stiles didn’t know any better, he’d say scared. Terrified of what Stiles is going to say to him.

“I will never, not as long as I live, let something like that happen to you again. Do you understand me? Never.”

Derek doesn’t lie to Stiles. He omits parts of the truth. He neglects to mention things like having cars follow Stiles around to make sure he doesn’t get fucking kidnapped, and the fact that there’s someone out there who wants to hurt him to get to Derek’s money, and it’s all under the guise of doing what’s best for Stiles.

At the end of the day, really all he is is just a dom type. He thinks he knows what’s good for Stiles better than Stiles or anyone else does, so he withholds. Whatever, Stiles thinks. He’s always been very good at sniffing things out, when he gives it a real try.

But it wouldn’t be wise to leave his entire life in the hands of Derek and his associates. Not that Stiles doesn’t trust them implicitly with it, but because they can’t always be around. They just can’t be. And it has been proven that Stiles is a target. A big one.

“I want my own gun,” he says, and Derek cocks his head to the side and frowns at him like he’s confused at where this conversation is going. “I want you to buy me a gun and tell me who your enemies are so I’m not just your sitting duck toy.”

It takes him a second. Derek stares at him and furrows his brow and looks like he just doesn’t know what to say to this – but it only lasts a second. Then, he’s smiling. Grinning, really, the thing spreading across his face as smooth as honey and just as slow, looking Stiles up and down like he’s impressed. “If you want a gun, you can have one, my love. I’ll teach you how to shoot.”

Stiles snorts. “You think I don’t already know how to shoot a gun? My dad’s the Sheriff, remember? I’m a very good shot, and that shouldn’t surprise you.”

With a tinkling laugh, Derek moves closer into Stiles’ personal space. He presses himself in between Stiles’ legs entirely, smiling and looking up at him with pure, unfiltered adoration. “I love you,” he says. “I’ll buy you a gun and I’ll tell you – anything you want to know. Anything you ask me. I realize now that keeping you in the dark about who I am and what I do, that’s…” he shakes his head, smile fading for a moment. “…it’s not going to work. You’re right in saying I treated you like a toy of mine. It…shouldn’t be that way. You need to be by my side. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

It isn’t, is the thing. It was a lot to ask to insist that Stiles know nothing and to lie to him all the time and to let all of this happen just because Derek wanted to lead two separate lives and he failed. It is not too much to ask by any stretch of the imagination for Stiles to be more than his little damsel in distress boyfriend who gets kidnapped and used against him.

Stiles isn’t going to ever be an active participant. But he’ll play the part. “I want to be with you,” Stiles says, and as soon as the words are out Derek’s shoulders visibly lower – tension draining out of them. Stiles holds his hand up, with the missing finger, and raises his eyebrows. “You’ve got a lot of making up to do.”

Derek frowns at the sight of it, and then quickly rearranges his face like he doesn’t want Stiles to know it upsets him. “But are we okay?”

He shrugs. “Make it okay.”

A sigh of relief, and Derek leans forward to press his cheek into Stiles’ chest, ear right next to where his heart is beating. “I can do that,” he promises, and Stiles is beyond sure of that. One thing that Derek is insanely good at is making everything seem like it’s okay, even when it isn’t. Aftercare comes naturally to him, and comforting Stiles is as easy as breathing, and knowing the right thing to say and when to say it…these are the reasons Stiles cannot leave him.

Well. Stiles could.

“You’re my good boy,” Derek says right into Stiles’ shirt, and Stiles reaches out to run his fingers through Derek’s hair. Derek leans into the touch with a long sigh, as if he’s been waiting for Stiles’ hands to be on him for days upon days, now, daydreaming about the touch.

There is so much that’s just not…right, with them. There are so many factors that should have one or both of them turning on their heels and making a break for it in the opposite direction. They just can’t do that, not to the other, not to their relationship. Stiles needs Derek, and Derek needs Stiles, and they’re going to keep doing this. They don’t know how to do anything else.

Everything is going to be different, now. The next chapter of their relationship is starting, and he doesn’t know if either of them have any idea what it is they’re getting themselves into. It doesn’t matter.

Stiles can be a crimelord boyfriend. He can sit at the very top right next to Derek, the head of an empire that Stiles is afraid to see the entirety of. He can do this. So long as Derek is there, he can.

And besides. There’s still so much that he and Derek haven’t done together. It’s time to start.


End file.
